Emma R. Kaufman

Emma R. Kaufman, born in Berlin, Ontario, served the Young Women’s Christian Association in Japan for thirty years, in Canada, and throughout the world. She joined the Tokyo YWCA staff where she supported physical education. She sent promising Japanese women to study abroad, and brought to Japan many Canadians who contributed to the “Y” work.

During the war she devoted herself to the work of the YWCA in Canada and helped Japanese Canadians interned as enemy aliens and escapees from the Nazis, who were interned here. She set up an endowment fund for students to study outside of North America and helped bring individuals from Third World nations to study in Canada.

A bronze statue of Kaufman stand in the foyer of the Tokyo YWCA – a tribute to her outstanding work. During the 60th anniversary of the association in 1965 the Emperor of Japan presented her with a memorial cup. In the same year she was presented with the International Cooperation Year medal in Montreal.