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Gokokuji Temple is a Buddhist temple in Naha, Okinawa, adjacent to Namanoue Shrine, with which it has close connections. The temple was founded in 1387 by Raiju a priest from Satsuma Province, now modern-day Kagoshima Prefecture.

Gokokuji Temple is perhaps most famous for two historical incidents which had ramifications far beyond Okinawa. The first involved the arrival, on a British ship, of the irascible Christian missionary Dr. Bernard Jean Bettelheim (1811-1870), a converted Jew from Hungary in 1846. Bettelheim tricked his way on shore and took up residence in the temple with his wife and children, an unwelcome nuisance, who basically drove away the temple's worshipers and greatly irritated his reluctant hosts with his behavior and attempts to convert the locals.
Bettelheim remained in Naha for seven years and encountered the American Commodore Matthew Perry in 1853 when he arrived in Okinawa on his way to Japan. Eventually Perry was persuaded by the Okinawan authorities to take Bettelheim away and the commodore left with the troublesome missionary in tow and a 15th century bell from the temple.

The bell was eventually given to the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis, and rung in celebration of Navy wins in the annual Army-Navy American football game. The bell was returned to Japan in 1987.

A stone memorial to Bettelheim, first erected in 1926, destroyed in World War II and subsequently replaced, now stands in the grounds of the temple, as a memorial to this st...