Place
Kobe קובה
The Japanese port where refugees spent a year on the way to Shanghai — and where they asked the rabbis when Shabbat begins.
On Japanese transit visas issued in Kaunas, thousands of refugees reached Kobe. The small local community took them in and supported them; the Mir yeshiva lived here about a year before the Japanese authorities moved everyone to Shanghai.
From here comes the famous halachic question: Japan lies beyond the date line, and it was unclear which day Shabbat fell on there. The answers differed, and some refugees kept two days in a row.
On the timeline
Sources
Acharonim and later rabbinic literature
- Kuntres Yom ha-Shevi'i — the collection of answers on when Shabbat falls in Japan
- Chazon Ish, Orach Chaim 64 — his definition of the date line in that dispute
Basis: documents and evidence.