Following the end of Japan’s “closed-door” foreign policy, Jewish families began to settle in Japan. The first recorded Jewish people arrived in Yokohama in 1861. It was in Yokohama that the first synagogue in Japan was established that same year.
Another early Jewish settlement was one established in the 1880s in Nagasaki, which was a large Japanese port city opened to foreign trade. This community was larger than the one in Yokohama, consisting of more than 100 families. It was here that the Beth Israel Synagogue was constructed in 1894 with money donated by Haskel Goldenberg and Sigmund Lessner. The Jewish population in Nagasaki would continually grow and remain active until its decline was caused by the Russo-Japanese War in the early 20th century. Beth Israel’s Torah scroll were given to the Jewish community of Kobe, which was made up of in part by a group of freed Russian Jewish prisoners of war. The synagogue building does not exist today and no monument or marker marks the spot where it once stood.