Kobe - No beef but Sake and eh ....... Jews?

A couple of days back I took a trip to Kobe, world famous for its beef and the earthquake in 1995. An attricative city sandwiched between the sea and green hills, today Kobe has recovered from the disaster as is a thriving cosmopolitan metropolis; it has one of the highest concentractions of foreigners in all of Japan. Since I already tasted Japanese class A beef in Takayama, I wasn't about to pay 25% extra for the same product just because it has the word "Kobe" at the beginning, so beef was off the menu.


Having done the cable-car ride and taken in the views of the city, I took a stroll round the very European looking Kitano neighbourhood, where various foreigners settled and built houses when Japan opened its door to international trade.

There were numerous churches of different Christian denominations, a mosque, and yes, finally I found the Jews in Japan; I knew it was only a matter of time; there's nowhere us Jews don't reach. And Jews like a good steak, so Kobe makes sense. The community here is called the Jewish Community of Kansai (the region centered around Kyoto).


With great satisfaction I continued my tour of Kobe, to the bustling shopping area and then to the Sake Museum of one of the Largest Sake breweries in Japan. There I got a step by step Audio-visual description of the quite involoved Sake making process.

Now when in the James Bond Film "You only live twice", which is set in Japan, Bond (played by Sean Connery says, "Oh I like Shake. Eshpeshially when it'sh sherved at the right temperature; 98.5 degreesh Farenheit," he wasn't completely wrong. Sake can actually be served hot or cold depending on the type of Sake and the season. The secret of making Sake is the use of a fungus called Koji, which turns the rice starch into sugar but i won't give you a run-down of the whole process as, of course, the highlight of any booze museum is the free tasting at the end. Kampaiiiii!