Paper short abstract:

This paper explores recent trends in tourism and migration to Japan, using the case of Israe-lis as an example of the interaction between native residents and foreigners in motion, and the way transnational mobility serves to re-evaluate home and attachment, in "real" or imagined Japan and beyond

Paper long abstract:

The number of foreign visitors to Japan hit a record high in 2019 and is expected to mount as Tokyo 2020 approaches. It seems that Japan is enhancing its image as an object of fascination and a unique tourist destination, while visitors from Asia and around the world flock there, including growing numbers of visitors from Israel. At the same time, despite its rapidly aging and shrinking population, Japan is reluctant to declare itself an immigrant receiving country (Roberts 2018). The number of non-Japanese residents keeps growing but a sense of multicultural coexistence (tabunka kyōsei) is yet to be achieved (Kibe 2017). Against this background, my paper examines the experience of Israelis who travel to Japan. Following its mounting popularity (a "Japan-Boom"), the number of Israelis entering Japan has nearly tripled in the last six years and consists of heterogeneous groups: from organized tours, to in-dependent tourists, to younger budget-traveller hikers Woofers or couch-surfers in rural Japan, as well as expatriates, foreign students or Israelis married to Japanese partners. To respond to their needs, Hebrew language pamphlets are handed out in tourist sites, new Chabad Jewish centres are mushrooming in large cities (the fourth of which was in 2019), as well as Israeli restaurants and Hebrew speaking guides. Drawing on data obtained from ob-servations, conversations with Israelis as well as Japanese tour-guides travel-agents and other service providers, and analysis of blogs and Facebook groups, I examine inter-cultural encounters and show how a new foreign community is taking shape. The new fluid community negotiates its belonging to the host country as a provisional home, often emotionally dear to the heart, while their motivations and belonging might be questioned by their Japanese counterparts. I demonstrate how they interpret everyday interactions in terms of rejection and attachment to actual or imagined Japan.