Jews in Japan: Presence and Perception. Antisemitism, Philosemitism and International Relations is a study on the history of real and imagined Jews in Japan, which discusses the little known cultural, political and economic ties between Jews and Japan, and follows the evolution of Jewish stereotypes in Japan in the last century and a half. The book begins with the arrival of Jews and their image in late 19th to early 20th-century Japan, when the seeds of later stereotyped visions were sown. The discussion then focuses on wartime Japan, delving into the complex and mixed attitudes of the Japanese Empire toward Jews. In postwar Japan, the partial reception of the Holocaust intertwined with earlier antisemitic and philosemitic manifestations, resulting in instances of both hatred and admiration toward Jews. Finally, the book explores the recent reframing of Japanese-Jewish historical encounters within the context of the growing ties between Japan and Israel. This study sheds new light on the little explored relations between Jews and Japan, offering thought-provoking insights into the coexistence of antisemitism and philosemitism, the political and diplomatic uses of Jewish history, and the perpetuation of Jewish stereotypes in a land devoid of a local Jewish population.

This volume summarizes the results of a research project organized at Mainz University in Germersheim, Germany. It focused on the Jewish community in Kaifeng in China (12th to 19th century). In recent years, increasing research has been done about the history and culture of the Jews in China, and in the future, more academic interest in all questions connected with it can be expected. Main topics are the perception of Chinese Judaism in European history as well as in Chinese society itself, the self-image of the descendants in Kaifeng and their present status in China, and how China deals with foreign ethnics and religions as part of its own history and identity. These topics were discussed from various interdisciplinary points of view. The authors from Australia, China, Hong Kong, Israel, Great Britain, France, and Germany are prominent sino-judaists who present their latest results of research in the light of new facts and approaches.

Japan was a party to the Axis Alliance with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. However, it ignored repeated German demands to harm the 40,000 Jews who found themselves under Japanese occupation during World War Two. This book attempts to answer why they behaved in a relatively humane fashion towards the Jews.

While prejudice against Jews is a real and ongoing category in Western culture, little attention has been paid to the myths of the Jews' and their impact in countries outside the West. This work draws on a wide variety of source materials from the past two centuries to examine the images of the Jews' as constructed in China. However, the interest here does not lie in the determination of the boundary between the real and fictional aspects of these images. Rather, it lies in the implications associated with the Jew' as an other', which remains a distant mirror in the construction of the self' amongst various social groups in modern China. Although it has been noted by a few scholars that the use of the Jews' as a category was important to many thinkers of modern China in the construction of their nationalistic and socio- political ideologies, this is the first systematic study in the field to be published. This book is also more than a historical book on China in that it opens a new arena for modern Jewish studies from a unique angle.

The articles in this issue deal with various aspects of the on-going re-evaluation and reconsideration of the far-reaching political, economic and ideological transformation of China in the 1950s, exploring the broader themes in various subfields and from different perspectives. There is a special focus on specific developments in the early 1950s: on land reform and the significance of this for the political consolidation of the new People's Republic, on state violence and mass crimes; on the state discourse on housewives and housework; on the establishment of Chinese as a foreign language at Peking University from the perspective of an eye-witness. Two studies deal with developments in the field of historiography: the first analyses the discussions of Chinese intellectuals in the late 1950s who were seeking to establish historical legitimacy; the second highlights recent debates among historians and intellectuals who have been creating new master narratives and have been involved, in pluralistic terms, in newly constructing the history of the 1950s, especially with regard to the Great Leap Forward and the 1957 Anti-Rightist Movement.

This book is open access under a CC BY 4.0 license. Rethinking the ways global history is envisioned and conceptualized in diverse countries such as China, Japan, Mexico or Spain, this collections considers how global issues are connected with our local and national communities. It examines how the discipline had evolved in various historiographies, from Anglo Saxon to southern European, and its emergence in Asia with the rapid development of the Chinese economy motivation to legitimate the current uniqueness of the history and economy of the nation. It contributes to the revitalization of the field of global history in Chinese historiography, which have been dominated by national narratives and promotes a debate to open new venues in which important features such as scholarly mobility, diversity and internationalization are firmly rooted, putting aside national specificities. Dealing with new approaches on the use of empirical data by framing the proper questions and hypotheses and connecting western and eastern sources, this text opens a new forum of discussion on how global history has penetrated in western and eastern historiographies, moving the pivotal axis of analysis from national perspectives to open new venues of global history.

Access in English to Japanese analysis of Japan's energy policies, business ventures, diplomacy and economic assistance in the region.

"Few peoples have drawn the 'us' and 'them' line so clearly and maintained it for so long." —From The Jews and the Japanese It is difficult to imagine two more widely different—almost incompatible—societies than those of the Jews and the Japanese: a people spread over the four corners of the world versus a people with an almost uninterrupted history of sovereignty in its own land: geographical heterogeneity versus linguistic and cultural homogeneity; a cosmopolitan experience versus an island mentality; strict religious and moral commandments versus group–based and aesthetically bound values. Yet, there are also surprising analogies between these two peoples. It is this extraordinary combination of similarities and differences that are explored. In The Jews and the Japanese, Professor Shillony describes how these two peoples, both rich in cultural heritage and historical experiences, have interacted with the Christian West, their outstanding achievements and immense tragedies, and their attempts to integrate with the West and its repeated rejection of them.

Jews in Japan: Presence and Perception. Antisemitism, Philosemitism and International Relations is a study on the history of real and imagined Jews in Japan, which discusses the little known cultural, political and economic ties between Jews and Japan, and follows the evolution of Jewish stereotypes in Japan in the last century and a half. The book begins with the arrival of Jews and their image in late 19th to early 20th-century Japan, when the seeds of later stereotyped visions were sown. The discussion then focuses on wartime Japan, delving into the complex and mixed attitudes of the Japanese Empire toward Jews. In postwar Japan, the partial reception of the Holocaust intertwined with earlier antisemitic and philosemitic manifestations, resulting in instances of both hatred and admiration toward Jews. Finally, the book explores the recent reframing of Japanese-Jewish historical encounters within the context of the growing ties between Japan and Israel. This study sheds new light on the little explored relations between Jews and Japan, offering thought-provoking insights into the coexistence of antisemitism and philosemitism, the political and diplomatic uses of Jewish history, and the perpetuation of Jewish stereotypes in a land devoid of a local Jewish population.

Irene Eber was one of the foremost authorities on Jews in China during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries—a field that, in contrast to the study of the Jewish diaspora in Europe and the Americas, has been critically neglected. This volume gathers fourteen of Eber’s most salient articles and essays on the exchanges between Jewish and Chinese cultures, making available to students, scholars, and general readers a representative sample of the range and depth of her important work in the field of Jews in China. Jews in China delineates the centuries-long, reciprocal dialogue between Jews, Jewish culture, and China, all under the overarching theme of cultural translation. The first section of the book sets forth a sweeping overview of the history of Jews in China, beginning in the twelfth century and concluding with a detailed assessment of the two crucial years leading up to the Second World War. The second section examines the translation of Chinese classics into Hebrew and the translation of the Hebrew Bible into Chinese. The third and final section turns to modern literature, bringing together eight essays that underscore the cultural reciprocity that takes place through acts of translation. The centuries-long relationship between Judaism and China is often overlooked in the light of the extensive discourse surrounding European and American Judaism. With this volume, Eber reminds us that we have much to learn from the intersections between Jewish identity and Chinese culture.