Japan – Recovery is still a rarely-talked about concept in Japan, but with Pessah approaching, members of the devastated nation’s small Jewish community are making plans to celebrate the holiday’s signature Seder meals in Tokyo.
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“People are starting to come back slowly,” said Chabad-Lubavitch of Japan Director Rabbi Mendy Sudakevich. “Their jobs are here.”
Sudakevich and his family evacuated days after March’s deadly earthquake and tsunami claimed tens of thousands of lives, and left a nuclear power plant spewing radiation from its damaged reactors.
His wife and children remain in Israel, but the rabbi decamped to Hong Kong, where he launched a relief effort focused on the inundated northern city of Sendai, along with Chabad of Asia director Rabbi Mordechai Avtzon.
Sudakevich returned to Tokyo three weeks ago.
He expects a fraction of the usual crowd, or about 100 people, to attend each of the two Seders – the first night of the holiday begins April 18 – but feeding everyone will be a challenge in the upended country, he said.
With the Fukushima nuclear power plant still leaking radiation into the sea, air and surrounding countryside, many agricultural products are now viewed as health risks. The rabbi is avoiding local produce at all costs.
“There are things we can get, and other things that we are being advised to avoid,” explained Sudakevich.
“There’s matza and wine,” said Sudakevich.
“That’s the minimum that we need for a Seder.”
In the meantime, he’s giving Torah classes and running children’s activities and has hosted 30 people for Sabbath services and dinner.
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The article doesn’t explain why they fled Tokyo which is over two hundred miles from the nuclear plants and are just returning now.
#1 and you are sitting comfortably in the USA on ur tukess and what have u done lately?
They fled because there was uncertainty about the nuclear exposure..