This chapter explores the Jewish community in Japan and its ups and downs since its emergence in the latter half of the nineteenth century until today. Although a small community of usually no more than a thousand souls, it has been a home for diverse Jewish groups and a large number of talented individuals. The chapter traces its emergence, its growth following the Bolshevik Revolution, its ordeal during World War II, and its postwar recovery.

In the two decades between the first staging of Gluck’s Orfeo in 1903 and the end of Asakusa Opera in the great fire of 1923, musical theatre in Japan saw a rapid process of adoption and transformation. But despite the well-known role of Italian choreographer Giovanni Vittorio Rosi in the training and performance of Western opera at the Imperial Theatre in Tokyo, the association between opera and Italy that was so prominent in other parts of the world never quite took hold. The chapter interrogates the limits of the appeal of italianitá in the history of transnational operatic encounters. These limits are in part rooted in the general difficulties of transplanting a composite cultural form to a foreign setting and its hybridisation with local cultural practices. The chapter discusses the nation-building goals of the Meiji government and the translation of librettos, the Wagnerian moment among Japanese artists and intellectuals and the general conditions of cultural exchange in Meiji Japan and their effects on perceptions of Italianness.

This chapter describes the experiences of a farmer-merchant, Shinohara Chūemon, in the new Yokohama treaty port between 1859 and 1873. By examining the activities, decisions, and fortunes of one individual in the context of the new global space of Yokohama, the chapter offers an interpretation of continuity and change during the turbulent final years of the Tokugawa shogunate. It explores the ways in which the opening and expansion of foreign trade in Yokohama led to far-reaching transformations of Japan’s society, economy and culture. The chapter interprets the transformation of Japan in the mid-nineteenth century as not only a top-down revolution initiated by the leaders of the Meiji Restoration, but also a bottom-up process led by countless individuals in search of greater economic well-being.

Western arms played a significant role as a new means of violence leading to the Meiji Restoration and in the ensuing civil war in Japan 1868–69. This chapter explores how industrial arms manufacturing and the global arms trade in the 1860s fueled wars in multiple locations worldwide including Japan. As domains and the Shogunate prepared for battle domestic demand for foreign arms soared precipitously overshadowing any other form of international trade. With their global and regional connections local Western merchants such as L. Kniffler & Co. in Nagasaki and the Schnell brothers in Yokohama supplied several sides in the Japanese conflict with military goods ranging in size from gunpowder to gunboats. Nevertheless, the rifle became the prevalent Western weapon for combat in Japan and it is the rifle that became the centerpiece of military strategy and social reform. Contrary to the prevalent image of arms trading limited to a few young risk takers like Thomas Glover, this study shows the widespread and short-term creation of military goods trade networks through abundant foreign supply and great domestic demand.