History of the Jews in Japan the end of Japan's "closed-door" foreign policy, Jewish families again began to settle in Japan. The first recorded Jewish settlers arrived at Yokohama in 1861. By 1895, this community, which by then consisted of about 50 families, established the first synagogue in Meiji Japan. Part of this community would later move to Kobe after the great Kanto earthquake of 1923. Another early Jewish settlement was established in the 1880s in Nagasaki, a large Japanese port city opened to foreign trade by the Portuguese. This community was larger than the one in Yokohama, consisting of more than 100 families. It was
2011 Christchurch earthquake the TranzCoastal has been cancelled until mid-August. KiwiRail also delayed 14 March departure of its Interislander ferry to Singapore for a extension and refit prior to the 2011 Rugby World Cup. With extra passenger and freight movements over Cook Strait following the earthquake, the company would have been unable to cope with just two ships operating on a reduced schedule so soon after the earthquake, so pushed back the departure to the end of April. The earthquake combined with the urgency created by the unseasonably early break-up of sea ice on the Ross Ice Shelf caused logistical problems with the