Sugar in the Tea: Amazing Stories about Jews and the Far East

Rabbi Marvin Tokayer & Ellen Rodman, PhD

With intolerance and hate speech on the rise, and anti-Semitism and xenophobia seemingly ubiquitous, it is ever more important to look to stories of cross-cultural understanding and unity. The Far East has long been a source of these stories, a place where Jews and Asians have lived harmoniously and where Jews have been considered the “sugar in the tea.”

Sugar in the Tea: Amazing Stories about Jews and the Far East, coauthored by Rabbi Marvin Tokayer and Ellen Rodman, Ph.D, expands on Pepper, Silk & Ivory: Amazing Stories about Jews and the Far East (2014), offering even more true, mostly unknown stories of Jews and Asians in the Far East that will leave readers exclaiming, “Who knew!”

Annie Samson (1903-1994), for example, was a Jewish visionary and pioneering educator. Born and educated in India, she was sent to England for higher education. About the same time, the Anjuman Islam Foundation in Pakistan was interested in starting a school for Muslim girls, an idea that was unheard of at the time, and Samson was looking for a job. Against all odds, although Annie was Jewish, in 1939 she became the first director/principal of this school with an enrollment of only four girls. Despite a series of challenges, the Jewish teacher and Muslim students prevailed, benefiting from and contributing to each other’s goals. Today the school boasts an enrollment of more than five thousand Muslim girls, and every year Annie Samson is honored on “Annie Samson Day” when prizes are awarded to students.

Included are also the stories of Bernard Bettelheim: The Most Unwanted Guest in Okinawa; Samad and the Jewish Connection to India’s Taj Mahal; Albert Einstein: Why the Asians Welcomed Him; Harbin, Manchuria: The Finest Jewish Community in the Diaspora; How Mahatma Gandhi Disappointed the Jews; and How Genghis Khan’s Mongolian Empire Embraced Jews.

Good stories are good stories, so readers of all backgrounds will enjoy Sugar in the Tea: general readers, Jews, Asians, Christians, Muslims, historians, rabbis, and students of all ages. The two volumes together are the only anthologies of the true, compelling stories of Jews and Asians, and they introduce readers to people and places about which they never knew, thus helping to ensure that this part of history will never be forgotten.

These stories serve as a timely reminder that people of different races, religions, and cultures can contribute to and benefit from each other, and leave the world a better place than they found it, just as Jews and Asians have done for centuries.