Japan is a land of 72 seasons. Each day is not the same and not the same as the last. There is nuance and a time when each fish, each swaying type of grass, and piece of fruit is most spectacular and ripe. I write this from a local café–every spot is an easy stroll from yaezaukra, a late-blooming variety of sakura with soft pompoms of pink. Spring is in motion, and our Israeli guests have their choice of flower festivals like the azalea or purple wisteria.

Every step in Japan is peaceful, right? Well, yes, but for those who are alert and sensitive, there is more to discuss. If we go by a different calendar, a Jewish one, today is already a heavy day. It’s Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Memorial Day. We look back, we stay present, and we anticipate what’s ahead. Maybe we Jews, with all of our history, alertness, appreciation, and memorial days, also have 72 seasons. Or 175. 365 Seasons. Each day holds a lot.

Take yesterday, when I invited our Israeli guests downstairs for coffee and to help eat the remaining slices of our son’s Bar Mitzvah cake. We ate these sweet crubles in the in-between of his Bar Mitzvah Shabbat and the solemnity of a Yom HaShoah.

We sat under our giant flag of Israel and talked. They had questions. “How did this guest house begin? Why do we do it?” There’s much to say. (My husband, kids, and I host every day of the week, and it has changed our Jewish-Japanese-American-in-Tokyo lives).

Like most Jewish stories, the seeds and treasure are born from both pain and joy. We planted this guesthouse for Israelis coming to Tokyo one year before Oct. 7th. We bought our home and invested in projects conceived when we hosted our first guests. Two of our guests have fallen in terror and war. We take none of these dear friends for granted.

We host grandchildren and children who are survivors of pograms, second and third generation Holocaust survivors, grandchildren of brave teens who fled their countries on foot and came to Eretz Yisrael. Survivors from kibbutzim in the Gaza envelope. We host in solidarity, to give voice to hope, and with an emotional waver in our voices when we say, “Am Yisrael Chai.” Every one of our guests is a miracle at what their ancestors endured or escaped. My kids, too. Each of us is an enduring, albeit vulnerable miracle.

We had the cake on the day of the Bar Mitzvah, alongside a celebratory kiddush with sparkling Gamla Brut. I’d also prepared Bar Mitzvah cookies for all of our Israeli community for that Shishi/Friday evening prior. I’d just transferred a batch of Magen David cookies for our son. I moved from the oven to the cooling rack. Such perfectly buttery cookies. And I’d managed to find the right cookie cutters! And then the wave of embarrassed horror–-his name is Jude. Stars of David cookies for Jude. I do not have enough dark humor to ever push that envelope and dare to write his name in icing…in fact, it made me want to scrap the whole thing. Maybe I should even throw them away?? Heart beating, I rifled through the bag and found medallion shapes to start using instead. And then I remembered something that occurred a few years back.

Our boy had just been given a mobile phone, and he was choosing a background for his screen. He swiped past Avenger photos and street photos he’d taken, past cute photos of our cat when he was just a fluffy new kitten.

I saw his choice later emblazoned on the screen. The infamous yellow star with that font. Jude. Juden. The star of humiliation and betrayal. The star we were made to sew on our jackets before being taken or shot. Here it was on my Jewish boy’s newest possession.

Our guest, Arbel, was the first to notice. He took me aside. What should we do?

Sheesh. How utterly had I failed as a Jewish parent that he didn’t recognize this particular Jewish star for what it was? Had we not educated him enough? Had I not talked enough of this sadness and our survival the way every Jewish parent knows to? Is it because I live in Japan and somehow, without an actual Holocaust Museum, it has slipped past his recognition? Even though he’s read manga and books about heroes and villains of the Shoah? How do I break his heart with the knowledge of what this is and how it was used?

I breathed and dove in.

“But Mom. I know what it is.”

…”You do?? Huh?” And in a smaller voice, “Why did you select it, then?”

It was too much sadness.

“I know what it is. I know about Nazis, Hitler, and how they killed so many millions of Jews. I chose it because I’m alive. Because we live. I chose it because Am Yisrael Chai.”

I don’t know how much longer Jude had that particular image on his phone. But I know it was a rather mature acknowledgment and even a “screw you” to darkness. We live.

Maybe it was around the same time that his catch phrase was “own it.” Own your Judaism. Own your heritage. Own every part of who you are. Be it. Don’t shrink or let it be snatched.

This Jude of ours lives in the fullness of his life and his Jewishness, even on this string of islands called Japan, in the loving closeness of thousands of Israelis who hug and high-five him, who just listened to his reading of Parashat Shemini with our community torah that survived Nazi Poland. In the company of friends and family, chucking hard Japanese candy at him and welling up over Zoom. Tamar and her boys tuned in from their village in Israel. My parents and sisters tuned in from their living rooms in the US.

We watched him take his strides as a Jewish-Japanese young man, tallit and kippa fixed, voice steady despite the possibility of cracks, a real part of Israel even from Japan. Owning it.

And tonight, we’ll host a Yom HaShoah gathering from our Tokyo perch. I don’t know how many Israelis will yet come, but each of them is that surviving star, that scream into the wind that they are here. We live in light and with hope.

I hunger to know all of our stories, all of the roots and streams and feathers we’ve gathered. I’m here to document and record each of our miracles, each person who has overcome ancient antisemitism and wishes to share and simply be who they are. I even collect the books our guests’ grandparents and great-grandparents have written. Each of our guests, like our son and our daughters, is a treasure. They live in and with the fullness of who they are, with passion, with sensitivity, and so much to explore. I’m passionate for them and their futures. This guest house and our home are built on such a foundation – that their heritage and their lives should never, or never again, be stolen.

Maybe this is the start of a museum. A living one. I finish my coffee and prepare tonight’s candles. I think of that star and the flicker of life that endures.

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)