A Japanese author has found 650,000 buyers in recent months for two books contending that a worldwide Jewish conspiracy is to blame for Japan's increasing economic woes.
Masami Uno maintains in his two best-sellers that a Jewish conspiracy explains the Japanese yen's surge against the dollar, rising unemployment and growing U.S. demands for trade laws to reduce Japanese imports.Foreign Jews living in Japan have expressed concern over the apparent public appetite for Mr. Uno's works and a flurry of other recent books with similar themes.
"We know of about 12 to 14 books that propel the conspiratorial theory . . . that Jews control the world and are trying to bring Japan to its knees," said an American rabbi,Michael Shudrich, of the Jewish Community Center in Japan.
He said about 150 Jewish families live in Japan.
Another foreign Jew living in Tokyo, speaking only on condition of anonymity, said he feared such books could foster anti-Semitism at a time when many Japanese are edgy and resentful over the sudden halt to years of uninterrupted growth.
An Israeli Embassy official, also insisting on anonymity, said: "We are bothered by this new and disturbing phenomenon, but we have not issued a formal complaint because that would be unproductive."
Mr. Uno, a Japanese Christian, also is the founder and leader of a private organization in Osaka called the Middle East Problems Research Center.
In his book "If You Understand Judea You Can Understand the World," he wrote: "The outflow of massive capital away from Japan because of the high yen at home and high interest rates abroad is a plot to increase the value of international Jewish capital at the expense of Japan."
The yen has strengthened by nearly 60 percent against the dollar since September 1985 - from 242 to the dollar to about 150 to the dollar in recent trading. The yen's rise in value makes Japanese goods more expensive overseas and cuts export demand. Unemployment reached 3 percent in January, the highest level since figures first were compiled in 1953, and investment and profits are down in many industries.
Mr. Uno claims Jews plan to make Japan the world's "sacrificial lamb" in the next global depression, which he predicts will come about in 1990. He contends Jews control the world's capital, energy, food supply and media and dominate the United States.
In another book, "If You Understand Judea You Can Understand Japan," Mr. Uno claims the Jews are grooming South Korea as Japan's economic rival.
One of the books was published last April and the other in November.
Rabbi Shudrich points out that many of Mr. Uno's premises are false, such as his claim that IBM, General Motors and other major U.S. corporations are Jewish-controlled. He called the books a "rather disturbing pack of misinformation and disinformation."
"The worst part of this disturbing new phenomenon is that the average Japanese has no context to put it into, no access to where the facts lie (and) no reason to suspect they (the books) are based on a bunch of lies," he said.
Mr. Shudrich added that since so few Jews live in Japan and nearly all are expatriates, "the potential for real local impact is limited" in attempts to correct misperceptions.
Masao Kunihiro, a professor at Tokyo's Sophia University and an outspoken social critic, said the popularity of Mr. Uno's books may be "another sign of growing Japanese resentment toward America over recent trade wrangles . . . The resentment finds an immediate outlet in the Jews."
"Of course not every American is of Jewish descent, but many Japanese erroneously associate Jews with America," he said in an interview.
Mr. Kunihiro called Mr. Uno's premises "apple sauce and nonsense," but noted that some Japanese tend to "accept that kind of simplistic and overly naive explanation."
"This is not the first time that a ridiculous book has sold well here," he added. "It's simply another sign of the terrible intellectual immaturity of the Japanese reading public."
He cited a 1972 best seller, "The Japanese and the Jews," which maintained that Jews and Japanese are alike because both are "a race apart."
(AP) | Apr 01, 1987 7:00PM EST
