Hata Clan - Common Ancestry Theory

Common Ancestry Theory

Further information: Japanese-Jewish Common Ancestor Theory

The hypothesis that the Hata clan were a Jewish Nestorian tribe was proposed by Saeki Yoshiro in 1908. Saeki developed a theory described by Ben-Ami Shillony being "somewhat similar" to that advanced by Norman McLeod in 1879.

In 1879 the Scottish businessman Norman McLeod, who had lived in Japan since 1867, published in Nagasaki Japan and the Lost Tribes of Israel. Based on "personal research and observation", the book identified the Japanese as the descendants of the Ten Lost Tribes... Over thirty years later, in 1908, Saeki Yoshiro (1872-1965) a Waseda University professor, a Christian, and expert on Chinese Nestorians, published a book in which he developed a somewhat similar theory. According to Saeki, the Hata clan, which arrived from Korea and settled in Japan in the third century, was a Jewish-Nestorian tribe... Saiki's writings spread the theory about "the common ancestry of the Japanese and the Jews" (Nichi-Yu dosoron) in Japan, a theory that was endorsed by some Christian groups.