A surprise bestseller of the year 1970 was a book titled ¡°Nihonjin to Yudayajin¡± (¡°The Japanese and the Jews¡±). It brought international fame to an author until then unknown ¡ª Isaiah Ben-Dasan.
He introduces himself: a Jew born in Kobe and therefore at home in both Judaism and the religion he called ¡°Nihonkyo¡± (¡°Nihonism¡±). Japanese as he saw it was more than a nationality, more than a language, more than a culture. It was all those in one, and greater than the sum of its parts. It was a culture-religion, or religion-culture, without gods and therefore distinct from, though encompassing, ancient Shinto with its myriad gods.
¡°Humanity, not a deity,¡± said Ben-Dasan, ¡°sits at the center of Nihonism.¡±
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