A Righteous Man in Japan

In the early 1940s, in the middle of World War II, a young Jewish student was arrested for wearing tefillin, phylacteries traditionally placed on the arm and head during prayer, on the rooftop of a store. This was somewhat of a surprise, for he was neither in Berlin nor Warsaw, but rather Kobe, Japan. Thousands of European Jews had obtained visas through the heroic kindness of Chiune Sugihara, vice-consul for the Japanese Empire in Kaunas, Lithuania, who risked his life to provide safe passage out of the reach of the Nazis and into Japanese territory. Included among these survivors were many students and teachers of the renowned Mirrer Yeshiva.

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