Podcast with Japanese Researcher Arimasa Kubo

How it started. Kubo builds on earlier writers, mainly Rabbi Marvin Tokayer and Zen’ichiro Oyabe. He sets his work against the Bible’s prophecies that Israel would be scattered to the ends of the earth (Deuteronomy 28:64) and later gathered again (Jeremiah 31:10). He holds that Israelites traveled east all the way to Japan.

Ephraim and Emperor Jimmu. His opening case compares the family line of Ephraim, Joseph’s son, with the line of Japan’s first emperor, Jimmu. He sees six matching steps. He links the name Hoori to the Hebrew harim, “mountains,” and ties it to Joseph’s blessing of the mountains in Deuteronomy 33.

Related peoples and the route east. He places the Japanese alongside other groups with Israelite traditions: the Qiang of western China, the Mizo, the Shinlung (Bnei Menashe) and the Karen. He gives special weight to Japan’s Hata clan, whom he connects to the Qiang. He traces two routes. One runs from Assyria through Crimea, Kyrgyzstan, Xinjiang and Kaifeng to Japan. The other comes more directly from Assyria. He also cites a Kyrgyz legend of two brothers who parted, one going east.

Shinto customs with Israelite parallels. This is the core of the interview:

• The 

  omikoshi

  , the portable shrine carried in festivals, resembles the Ark of the Covenant, and the carriers’ chant “Essa, essa!” may be Hebrew.

• At Suwa Taisha, near Mount Moriya, the Ontōsai festival echoes the near-sacrifice of Isaac on Mount Moriah, a boy bound and then released.

• Shinto priests’ robes have tassels like Israelite fringes. The small box mountain monks (yamabushi) wear on their foreheads resembles tefillin. The tengu legend features a “Tora” scroll.

• The torii gate’s two pillars recall Jachin and Boaz at Solomon’s temple. Red torii recall the Passover blood on the doorposts.

DNA and language. He points to haplogroup D. It is common among Japanese and Qiang men (32–39% and about 23% in published studies) but rare among Koreans and Han Chinese, which he takes as a sign of a shared ancestry that set the Japanese apart. He grants that Mizo and Karen show few Israelite genetic markers. He also discusses word parallels, including the Kyrgyz name as “40 girls.”

Answering skeptics, and how his work is received. He responds to critics. He describes how Japanese audiences, Jews and Christians have taken his work, including TV programs and films about it.

A new find: the Kebesu Festival. He presents this Oita festival as fresh evidence and reads kebesu as the Hebrew keves, “lamb.”

Japan as a hidden Christian nation. His later argument moves past Israelites to early Eastern Christians, the Church of the East, reaching Japan. He cites Francis Xavier’s sense that Christianity might already have been there. His examples:

• Uzumasa in Kyoto, a Hata center, which he connects to the name 

  Ishu Mashiha

  , “Jesus Messiah.”

• Inari shrines, whose name he reads as INRI, the inscription on Jesus’s cross.

• Kyoto’s old capital, Heian-kyō, laid out in the shape of a cross.

• The sun goddess Amaterasu hiding in a rock cave and coming out again, which he compares to death and resurrection.

• Pure Land Buddhism and the chant 

  Namu Amida Butsu

  , which he suggests absorbed Christian ideas through the Chinese monk Shandao.

• The “three Creator gods” (Zoka Sanshin), the three-pillar torii, and everyday threes such as triangular omusubi, which he links to the Trinity.

What it means now. He closes on God’s purpose for the next generation in Japan. He takes up whether Japanese people with Israelite roots should return to Israel. His conclusion is that the symbols matter less than the faith they point to. Look for the interview on our YouTube Channel @LostTribesInstitute