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
Kanto (music) (Karsilamas) (which was however often a subject of satire in kanto songs) and Greek music (Kalamatiano, Ballos, Syrtos) (especially the Istanbul Rum who were so fond of urban forms of entertainment). In other words, kanto was the resuit of cultural exchange and almost all the early kanto singers were either Rum or Armenian: Pepron, Karakas, Haim, Shamiram Kelleciyan, and Peruz Terzekyan (all of them performed during the period following 1903). Galata was the part of Istanbul where sailors, rowdies, and roustabouts used to frequent. Ahmet Rasim Bey gives a vivid picture of the Galata theaters in his novel Fuhs-i Akit