When antisemitism and philosemitism go hand in hand: attitudes to Jews in contemporary East Asia

ABSTRACT

Despite their number in East Asia never exceeding 36,000 (currently around 10,000), Jews there are the subject of both distinctly strong positive and negative views. The presence of these attitudes is astounding not only because most of those who hold them have never come across a Jew, but also because the region misses most of the ‘classical’ motives for either philosemitism or antisemitism. An analysis of contemporary attitudes towards Jews in China, Japan and South Korea, including reactions to the still ongoing Israel–Hamas war, reveals that the distinctions between antisemitism and philosemitism are more blurred and nuanced than is often acknowledged. In East Asia, these two attitudes tend to reflect similar functions, and people often express both views without being aware of their historical and religious context elsewhere. Accordingly, this study by Kowner, Ainslie and Podoler calls for a reassessment of antisemitism beyond the Christian and Islamic spheres, to address this new and changing world.

KEYWORDS:

• 2023 Israel–Hamas war
• antisemitism
• China
• East Asia
• ethnic attitudes
• Japan
• Jews
• philosemitism
• prejudice
• South Korea

Notes

1 The only documented permanent premodern Jewish community in the region resided in Kaifeng, Henan province, China. By the mid-nineteenth century, the small community dispersed and ceased to exist.

2 While these figures are not derived from an official census or national statistics, community sources suggest the following estimates for the Jewish population: around 600–1,100 individuals in the entire region c. 1850, a range of 1,300–2,300 by 1900, approximately 28,500–32,000 around 1945, followed by a decline to 2,500–4,500 around 1990. In 2020, on the eve of the Covid-19 pandemic, the estimated Jewish population ranged from 6,800–11,100. For Jewish demography in modern and contemporary Asia, see Rotem Kowner, ‘Jewish communities in modern Asia: underlying commonalities, demographic features and distinctive characteristics’, in Rotem Kowner (ed.), Jewish Communities in Modern Asia: Their Rise, Demise and Resurgence (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2023), 315–49 (326–33).

3 See ADL Global 100, ‘About the survey methodology’, available at http://global100.adl.org/about (viewed 6 March 2024). The average score for Mongolia, the fourth East Asian country to be surveyed, was 26 per cent. Due to its limited population size (about three million inhabitants) and non-urban structure (about 30 per cent are nomadic), it was not examined in this work.

4 The literature on antisemitism is vast. For major works, see Robert Wistrich, A Lethal Obsession: Anti-Semitism from Antiquity to Global Jihad (New York: Random House 2010); and David Nirenberg, Anti-Judaism: The Western Tradition (New York: W. W. Norton 2013).

5 See, for example, Alan Edelstein, An Unacknowledged Harmony: Philo-Semitism and the Survival of European Jewry (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press 1982); Phyllis Lassner and Lara Trubowitz (eds), Antisemitism and Philosemitism in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries: Representing Jews, Jewishness, and Modern Culture (Newark: University of Delaware Press 2008); and Maurice Samuels, ‘Philosemitism’, in Sol Goldberg, Scott Ury and Kalman Weiser (eds), Key Concepts in the Study of Antisemitism and Racism (Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan 2021), 201–14.

6 Samuels, ‘Philosemitism’, 202.

7 See, for example, nineteenth-century philosemites who viewed only Jewish women positively in Nadia Valman, The Jewess in Nineteenth-Century Literary Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2007).

8 Anson H. Laytner and Jordan Paper, The Chinese Jews of Kaifeng: A Millennium of Adaptation and Endurance (Lanham, MD, Boulder, CO, New York and London: Lexington Books 2017).

9 Avrum M. Ehrlich, Jews and Judaism in Modern China (London and New York: Routledge 2010), 87.

10 Ibid., 87. Maisie Meyer, ‘Baghdadi Jewish merchants in Shanghai and the opium trade’, Jewish Culture and History, vol. 2, no. 1, 1999, 58–71; Meron Medzini, ‘China, the Holocaust, and the birth of the Jewish state’, Israel Journal of Foreign Affairs, vol. 7, no. 1, 2013, 135–45; Aron Shai, China and Israel: Chinese, Jews; Beijing, Jerusalem (1890–2018) (Boston: Academic Studies Press 2019).

11 See, for example, Song Lihong, ‘Reflections on Chinese Jewish Studies: a comparative perspective’, in Song Lihong and James R. Ross (eds), The Image of Jews in Contemporary China (Boston: Academic Studies Press 2016), 206–34 (206).

12 P. R. Kumaraswamy, ‘China, Israel and the US: the problematic triangle’, China Report, vol. 49, no. 1, 2013, 143–59; Yoram Evron, ‘The economic dimension of China–Israel relations: political implications, roles and limitations’, Israel Affairs, vol. 23, no. 5, 2017, 828–47.

13 For an analysis of recent Sino-Israeli relations, see Yoram Evron, ‘Relationship under a glass ceiling: a framework for China–Israel relations’, in Yoram Evron and Rotem Kowner (eds), Israel–Asia Relations in the Twenty-First Century: The Search for Partners in a Changing World (London and New York: Routledge 2023), 29–49; Mary J. Ainslie, ‘Chinese philosemitism and historical statecraft: incorporating Jews and Israel into contemporary Chinese civilizationism’, China Quarterly, vol. 245, 2021, 208–26.

14 Jonathan Judaken, ‘Between philosemitism and antisemitism: the Frankfurt School’s anti-antisemitism’, in Lassner and Trubowitz (eds), Antisemitism and Philosemitism in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries, 23–46.

15 Lihong, ‘Reflections on Chinese Jewish Studies’, 207.

16 Ibid., 209.

17 Avrum M. Ehrlich, ‘Overview of the Jewish presence in contemporary China’, in Avrum M. Ehrlich (ed.), The Jewish–Chinese Nexus: A Meeting of Civilizations (London and New York: Routledge 2008), 3–15 (8); Ehrlich, Jews and Judaism in Modern China, 21.

18 Galia Patt-Shamir and Yoav Rapoport, ‘Crossing boundaries between Confucianism and Judaism’, in Ehrlich (ed.), The Jewish–Chinese Nexus, 49–60; Galia Patt-Shamir, ‘Confucianism and Judaism: a dialogue in spite of differences’, in Ehrlich (ed.), The Jewish–Chinese Nexus, 61–71.

19 Ilan Maor, ‘Sino–Israel relations at the start of the second decade: a view from Shanghai and Jerusalem’, in Ehrlich (ed.), The Jewish–Chinese Nexus, 239–52; Ehrlich, Jews and Judaism in Modern China.

20 Patt-Shamir and Rapoport, ‘Crossing boundaries between Confucianism and Judaism’.

21 Ehrlich, Jews and Judaism in Modern China.

22 Zhang Ping, ‘Israel and the Jewish people in Chinese cyberspace since 2002’, in Ehrlich (ed.), The Jewish–Chinese Nexus, 103–17.

23 See Thomas Altfelix, ‘The “post-Holocaust Jew” and the instrumentalization of philosemitism’, Patterns of Prejudice, vol. 34, no. 2, 2000, 41–56.

24 Song Hongbing, Huobi ZhanZheng (Beijing: CITIC Publishing House 2007).

25 ‘Zai youtairen de koudai li’, in ‘wei shi me you tai ren zhe me fu you, zhe pian wen zhang kan liao, jiang rang ni shou yi yi sheng!’ [Why are Jews so rich, read this article, it will benefit you for a lifetime!], Zhihu, 6 May 2018, available at https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/36487475 (viewed 10 April 2024). All translations from Asian languages, unless otherwise stated, are by the authors.

26 ‘jie mi: you tai ren wei shi me hui cheng wei quan qiu zui fu you di min zu’ [Secret: Why did Jews become the richest nation in the world?], Sohu, 9 August 2017, available at www.sohu.com/a/190596119_801260 (viewed 17 August 2019).

27 ‘yi ge gu shi gao su ni you tai ren ru he cheng wei you qian ren’ [The story of how the Jews became rich people], Sohu, 2 October 2016, available at www.sohu.com/a/115420092_498258 (viewed 10 April 2024).

28 ‘shi jie gong ren liang da zui cong ming di min zu, yi ge shi zhong guo, ling yi ge jiu shi zhe guo jia’ [The world recognizes two of the most intelligent peoples, one is China and the other is this country], QQ, 18 August 2017, available at https://v.qq.com/x/page/o0538pbdyhx.html (viewed 28 August 2019). For the Phalcon deal, see Evron, ‘Relationship under a glass ceiling’, 32–3.

29 ‘600 Wan youtairen bei tusha, zhenxiang rang ren chu hu yiliao’ [Six million Jews were slaughtered, the truth is surprising], Sohu, 13 December 2016, available at www.sohu.com/a/121478090_545223 (viewed 10 July 2019); ‘Erzhan shi xitelei weisheme yao fengkuang tusha youtairen?’ [Why did Hitler kill the Jews in madness during World War II?], Sohu, 8 January 2017, available at www.sohu.com/a/123718088_395602 (viewed 2 June 2019).

30 Yang Tian and Fang Kecheng, ‘How dark corners collude: a study on an online Chinese alt-right community’, Information, Communication & Society, vol. 26, no. 2, 2023, 441–58.

31 Moshe Bernstein, Globalization, Translation and Transmission: Sino-Judaic Cultural Identity in Kaifeng, China (Bern and New York: Peter Lang 2017); Chris Buckley, ‘Chinese Jews of ancient lineage huddle under pressure’, New York Times, 24 September 2016, available at www.nytimes.com/2016/09/25/world/asia/china-kaifeng-jews.html (viewed 6 March 2024).

32 See ‘Israel accuses China state TV of “blatant anti-Semitism”’, France24, 19 May 2021, available at www.france24.com/en/live-news/20210519-israel-accuses-china-state-tv-of-blatant-anti-semitism (viewed 6 March 2024).

33 See Glenn Timmermans, ‘Antisemitism by proxy’, ISGAP International, 10 March 2022, available at www.youtube.com/watch?v=RzEjRxrkAj4 (viewed 6 March 2024).

34 See Tuvia Gering, ‘Antisemitism with Chinese characteristics’, ISGAP International, 16 June 2022, available at www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbUqQonUfLg (viewed 6 March 2024).

35 Erupting on 7 October 2023, the war began when Hamas, the Palestinian Sunni Islamist organization ruling the Gaza Strip, launched a surprise attack on Israeli civilian communities and military bases. On that day, Hamas militants massacred approximately a thousand non-combatants, including toddlers, children, women and the elderly, and abducted another 250 Israelis. Israel’s subsequent military retaliation was significant in scale, catalysing global protests predominantly against Israel, accompanied by various expressions of antisemitic and Islamophobic sentiments. See, for example, Maya Yang, ‘Islamophobia and antisemitism on rise in US amid Israel-Hamas war’, Guardian, 10 November 2023, available at www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/nov/10/us-islamophobia-antisemitism-hate-speech-israel-hamas-war-gaza (viewed 6 March 2024).

36 See, for example, Yaqiu Wang, ‘Chinese social media platforms are now awash with antisemitism’, The Diplomat, 23 October 2023, available at https://thediplomat.com/2023/10/chinese-social-media-platforms-are-now-awash-with-antisemitism; and Liyan Qi, ‘Antisemitic comments increase across Chinese social media’, Wall Street Journal, 29 October 2023, available at www.wsj.com/world/china/antisemitic-comments-increase-across-chinese-social-media-6e73cf5c (both viewed 6 March 2024).

37 See Rotem Kowner and William Gervase Clarence Smith, ‘Jews in Japan: the winding road of a business community’, in Kowner (ed.), Jewish Communities in Modern Asia, 270–92.

38 The following historical overview is based on David G. Goodman and Miyazawa Masanori, Jews in the Japanese Mind: The History and Uses of a Cultural Stereotype (New York: Free Press 1995); Rotem Kowner, ‘The imitation game? Japanese attitudes towards Jews in modern times’, in Jonathan Adams and Cordelia Heß (eds), The Medieval Roots of Antisemitism: Continuities and Discontinuities from the Middle Ages to the Present Day (London and New York: Routledge 2018), 73–94.

39 Jacob Kovalio, The Russian Protocols of Zion in Japan: Yudayaka/Jewish Peril Propaganda and Debates in the 1920s (New York: Peter Lang 2009); Takao Chizuko, ‘World War I, the Siberian intervention, and antisemitism: the reception of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion in Japan’, in David Wolff, Shinji Yokote and Willard Sunderland (eds), Russia’s Great War and the Revolution in the Far East: Re-Imagining the Northeast Asian Theatre, 1914–1922 (Bloomington, IN: Slavica 2018), 125–52.

40 Goodman and Miyazawa, Jews in the Japanese Mind.

41 Rotem Kowner, ‘When strategy, economics, and racial ideology meet: inter-axis connections in the wartime Indian Ocean’, Journal of Global History, vol. 12, no. 2, 2017, 228–50.

42 Rotem Kowner, ‘The Japanese internment of Jews in wartime Indonesia and its causes’, Indonesia and the Malay World, vol. 38, no. 112, 2010, 349–71.

43 Gao Bei, Shanghai Sanctuary: Chinese and Japanese Policy toward European Jewish Refugees during World War II (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press 2012).

44 For Japan’s wartime attitudes, see Kowner, ‘The Japanese internment of Jews in wartime Indonesia and its causes’.

45 The most notable book in this endeavour was Isaiah BenDasan [Yamamoto Shichihei], Nihonjin to Yudayajin (Tokyo: Yamamoto Shoten 1970).

46 The two most successful books in this genre were published in 1986 and set the tone for later publications. Expressing overtly antisemitic views, their sales exceeded one million copies. See Uno Masami, Yudaya ga wakaru to Nihon ga mietekuru [If you comprehend the Jews, you will understand Japan] (Tokyo: Tokuma Shoten 1986); and Uno Masami, Yudaya ga wakaru to sekai ga mietekuru [If you comprehend the Jews, you will understand the world] (Tokyo: Tokuma Shoten 1986).

47 Rotem Kowner, ‘Tokyo recognizes Auschwitz: the rise and fall of Holocaust-denial in Japan, 1989–1999’, Journal of Genocide Research, vol. 3, no. 2, 2001, 257–72.

48 Julian Ryall, ‘Japanese paper apologises for anti-Semitic advert: Simon Wiesenthal Centre condemns books that claims March 2011 earthquake and tsunami were a Jewish conspiracy’, Telegraph, 8 December 2014.

49 Rotem Kowner, On Ignorance, Respect, and Suspicion: Current Japanese Attitudes towards Jews, Analysis of Current Trends in Antisemitism, no. 11 (Jerusalem: Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism, Hebrew University 1997).

50 See Rotem Kowner, ‘A Holocaust paragon of virtue’s rise to fame: the transnational commemoration of the Japanese diplomat Sugihara Chiune and its divergent national motives’, American Historical Review, vol. 128, no. 1, 2023, 31–63; and Rotem Kowner and Ran Zwigenberg, ‘Japan and the Holocaust: domesticating others’ horror’, in Mark Celinscak and Mehnaz M. Afridi (eds), International Approaches to the Holocaust (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press 2024).

51 Michal Zelcer-Lavid and Yoram Evron, ‘East-West Asia relations: the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and civil society in South Korea and Japan’, Israel Affairs, vol. 27, no. 1, 2021, 181–201.

52 For an historical analysis of the relations, see Rotem Kowner, ‘Israel–Japan relations: a recent promise that has yet to materialize’, in Evron and Kowner (eds), Israel–Asia Relations in the Twenty-First Century, 105–28.

53 See Christopher L. Schilling, ‘On symbolic philosemitism in Japan’, Journal of Modern Jewish Studies, vol. 19, no. 3, 2020, 297–313. For the recent discourse of common ancestry in Japan, see Takigawa Yoshito, ‘Kodai Nihon ni Yudayajin tōrai?’ [Did Jewish people arrive in ancient Japan?], Myrtos, October 2023, 22–5.

54 See Rotem Kowner, ‘Yapan nimne’a shanim mimeoravut bamizrach hatichon’ [Japan avoided involvement in the Middle East. The war forced it to reconsider its path], Haaretz, 5 November 2023, available at www.haaretz.co.il/news/world/asia/2023-11-04/ty-article/.premium/0000018b-9a97-db71-a7df-ffdf549b0000 (viewed 7 March 2024).

55 ‘Tensei Jingo’, Asahi Shimbun, 10 November 2023; an English translation (‘Vox populi: history warns Israel that even victims can turn into aggressors’) is available at www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/15053323 (viewed 7 March 2024). For an analysis of the symbolic transformation of Jews into Nazis, entrenched in anti-Israel rhetoric outside Japan, see, for example, Wistrich, A Lethal Obsession, 934–5.

56 Iran was surveyed twice. Its average score in 2014 was 56 per cent, whereas in 2015 it was 60 per cent, available on the ADL Global 100 website at https://global100.adl.org/country/iran/2014 and https://global100.adl.org/country/iran/2015, respectively (viewed 8 March 2024).

57 Cherie S. Lewis, Koreans and Jews (New York: American Jewish Committee 1994), 2.

58 Bernhard Seliger, ‘North Korean migration to China: economic, political and humanitarian aspects of a forgotten tragedy’, Harvard Asia Quarterly, vol. 8, no. 3, 2004, 26–34 (31).

59 See Guy Podoler, Monuments, Memory, and Identity: Constructing the Colonial Past in South Korea (Bern: Peter Lang 2011), 190–228.

60 Kenneth M. Wells, New God, New Nation: Protestants and Self-Reconstruction Nationalism in Korea 1896–1937 (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press 1990), 96.

61 Quoted in ibid., 41.

62 See Choi Chang-mo, ‘Han’guk sahoe ŭi Yudaein imiji pyŏnch’ŏnsa sogo’ [Historical changes of Jewish images in the Korean mind], Han’guk Isŭllam Hakhoe Nonch’ng, vol. 18, no. 1, 2008, 113–38.

63 Ibid.

64 See, for example, interview with South Korea’s ambassador to Israel in Zofia Hirschfeld, ‘Shnei Koreanim ochazim’ (Two Koreans hold), YNET, 24 March 2011, available at www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-4046985,00.html (viewed 8 March 2024).

65 See Alon Levkowitz, ‘Korea and the Middle East turmoil: a reassessment of South Korea-Middle East relations’, Korean Journal of Defense Analysis, vol. 24, no. 2, 2012, 225–38; Alon Levkowitz, South Korea’s Middle East Policy, Mideast Security and Policy Studies no. 106 (Ramat Gan: BESA, Bar-Ilan University 2013).

66 For analysis of the relations during the first two decades of the twenty-first century, see Guy Podoler, ‘Israel and the two Koreas: between sentiment and pragmatism’, in Evron and Kowner (eds), Israel-Asia Relations in the Twenty-First Century, 129–45.

67 See, for example, ‘Israel and Iran share most negative ratings in global poll’, BBC News (online), 6 March 2007, available at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/06_03_07_perceptions.pdf; ‘Global views of United States improve while other countries decline’, BBC News (online), 18 April 2010, available at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/160410bbcwspoll.pdf; and ‘Negative views of Russia on the rise: global poll’, BBC News (online), 3 June 2014, available at https://downloads.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/country-rating-poll.pdf (all viewed 8 March 2024).

68 See Gallup International Association, ‘Attitudes towards the recognition of Jerusalem as Israeli capital’, 12 May 2017, available at www.gallup-international.com/survey-results-and-news/survey-result/attitudes-towards-the-recognition-of-jerusalem-as-israeli-capital (viewed 8 March 2024). At the same time, polls have shown that South Koreans are also highly critical of the Palestinians, the Arab counties and Iran. See Guy Podoler, ‘A South Korean progressive outlook on the Middle East conflict: contextualizing Hankyoreh’s coverage of the Gaza war’, Korea Observer, vol. 44, no. 2, 2013, 223–47 (238–9).

69 Podoler, ‘A South Korean progressive outlook on the Middle East conflict’, 238–9.

70 Sarit Kattan Gribetz and Claire Kim, ‘The Talmud in Korea: a study in the reception of rabbinic literature’, AJS Review, vol. 42, 2018, 315–50.

71 Ibid.

72 Choi, ‘Han’guk sahoe ŭi Yudaein imiji pyŏnch’ŏnsa sogo’, 125–9, 136.

73 See report by the Simon Wiesenthal Center, ‘Wiesenthal Center denounces Nazi-like depiction of Jews by prolific and popular Korean author’, 8 February 2007, available at www.wiesenthal.com/about/news/wiesenthal-center-denounces-29.html (viewed 8 March 2024).

74 Jerusalem Post Staff, ‘Anti-Semitic South Korean book pulled’, Jerusalem Post, 15 March 2007, available at www.jpost.com/international/anti-semitic-south-korean-book-pulled (viewed 8 March 2024).

75 Quoted in John Power, ‘South Korean media’s anti-Semitism problem: the response to a U.S. hedge fund’s stance on a merger reveals a deeper problem with how Korea’s media approaches race’, The Diplomat, 17 July 2015, available at https://thediplomat.com/2015/07/south-korean-medias-anti-semitism-problem. See also JTA, ‘Samsung removes cartoons mocking Jewish hedge-fund founder’, The Times of Israel, 16 July 2015, available at www.timesofisrael.com/samsung-removes-cartoons-mocking-jewish-hedge-fund-founder (both viewed 8 March 2024).

76 For the ADL’s background to the chant, see ‘Chant: Khaybar, Khaybar, oh Jews, the army of Mohammed will return’, 27 July 2022, available at www.adl.org/resources/backgrounder/chant-khaybar-khaybar-oh-jews-army-mohammed-will-return (viewed 8 March 2024).

77 See Chǒng Kang-san, ‘Chadaga pongch’ang tudŭri nŭn Yisŭrael . . . P’allesŭt’ain yǒndae siwiga “panYudaejuŭi” rago?’, Minplusnews, 13 October 2023, available at www.minplusnews.com/news/articleView.html?idxno=14174 (viewed 8 March 2024).

78 Quoted in Rose Arbes, ‘How the Talmud became a best-seller in South Korea’, New Yorker, 23 June 2015, available at www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/how-the-talmud-became-a-best-seller-in-south-korea (viewed 8 March 2024).

79 See ADL Global 100, ‘About the survey methodology’.

80 Validity refers to how accurately a method measures what it is intended to measure, whereas cross-cultural validation refers to whether measures generated originally in one culture are applicable, meaningful and therefore equivalent in another culture. See Wendy Y. Huang and Stephen H. Wong, ‘Cross-cultural validation’, in Alex C. Michalos (ed.), Encyclopedia of Quality of Life and Well-Being Research (Dordrecht, Heidelberg, New York and London: Springer 2014), 1369–71.

81 For the questions (nos 2, 3, 5, 7, 10), see ADL Global 100, ‘About the survey methodology’.

82 Also, 68 per cent of Christians believed ‘Jews think they are better than other people’, compared with 50 per cent of Buddhists and 61 per cent of non-affiliated/atheists.

83 For the cult’s antisemitism, see Rotem Kowner, ‘On symbolic antisemitism: motives for the success of the Protocols in Japan and its consequences’, Posen Papers in Contemporary Antisemitism, no. 3 (Jerusalem: Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism, Hebrew University of Jerusalem 2006), 12–15.

84 See, for example, Seonok Lee, ‘The Making of a Global Racial Hierarchy: Racial Formation of South and Southeast Asian Migrants in South Korea’, Ph.D. dissertation, University of British Columbia, 2019, 59; Gi-Wook Shin, ‘Racist South Korea? Diverse but not tolerant of diversity’, in Rotem Kowner and Walter Demel (eds), Race and Racism in Modern East Asia: Western and Eastern Constructions (Leiden and Boston: Brill 2013), 369–90; and Rotem Kowner and Harumi Befu, ‘Ethnic nationalism in postwar Japan: Nihonjinron and its racial facets’, in Rotem Kowner and Walter Demel (eds), Race and Racism in Modern East Asia: Interactions, Nationalism, Gender and Lineage (Leiden and Boston: Brill 2015), 389–412.

85 See Frank Dikötter, ‘The discourse of race in twentieth-century China’, in Kowner and Demel (eds), Race and Racism in Modern East Asia: Western and Eastern Constructions, 351–68 (366–7); and Yinghong Cheng, ‘Gangtai patriotic songs and racialized Chinese nationalism’, in Kowner and Demel (eds), Race and Racism in Modern East Asia: Interactions, Nationalism, Gender and Lineage, 342–67.

86 Lee, ‘The Making of a Global Racial Hierarchy’.

87 Olga Fedorenko, ‘Globalization and affective economy of Othering in South Korea emotional particularism in Orion Choco Pie advertisements’, Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies, vol. 25, no. 2, 2023, 174–91 (175). Fedorenko mentions Japanese amae and Korean han and chŏng as examples.

88 Ibid.

89 Christopher L. Schilling, ‘Jewish Seoul: an analysis of philo- and antisemitism in South Korea’, Modern Judaism: A Journal of Jewish Ideas and Experience, vol. 38, no. 2, 2018, 183–97 (193).

90 See, for example, Harry J. Benda, The Crescent and the Rising Sun: Indonesian Islam under the Japanese Occupation, 1942–1945 (The Hague and Bandung: W. van Hoeve 1958), 255, 272; and Kowner, ‘When strategy, economics, and racial ideology meet’, 243–7.

91 Zygmunt Bauman, ‘Allosemitism: premodern, modern and postmodern’, in Bryan Cheyette and Laura Marcus (eds), Modernity, Culture and ‘The Jew’ (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press 1998), 137–56 (143); Zygmunt Bauman, Life in Fragments: Essays in Postmodern Morality (Oxford: Blackwell 1995), 207–8.

92 Jonathan Karp and Adam Sutcliffe, ‘Introduction: a brief history of philosemitism’, in Jonathan Karp and Adam Sutcliffe (eds), Philosemitism in History (New York and Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2011), 1–26 (3).

93 Various public surveys and polls conducted in Japan over the last two decades suggest that, in terms of ‘influence in the world’, Israel is one of the most negatively viewed countries, alongside China and North Korea. See Kowner, ‘Israel–Japan relations’, 119.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Rotem Kowner

Rotem Kowner is Professor of History and Japanese Studies at the University of Haifa. He has led numerous projects that examine expansive themes in Asia from a global perspective. One notable ongoing project addresses questions related to race and racism in East Asia, culminating in the books From White to Yellow (McGill-Queen’s University Press 2014) and (with Walter Demel) Race and Racism in Modern East Asia (Brill 2013–15). Another project explores the settlement of Jews in Asia, leading to the edited volume Jewish Communities in Modern Asia (Cambridge University Press 2023). Additionally, a third project focusing on Israel’s relations with Asia produced the edited volume (with Yoram Evron), Israel–Asia Relations in the Twenty-First Century (Routledge 2023). Email: [email protected] http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2489-2990

Mary J. Ainslie

Mary J. Ainslie is Associate Professor in media and communications and Deputy Head of the School of International Communications, University of Nottingham Ningbo Campus. Her research specializes in intercultural links across the Asia region and she has won funding from the Korea Foundation, the Academy of Korean Studies, the Zhejiang Philosophy and Social Sciences Programme and the Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She is the author of the monograph Anti-Semitism in Contemporary Malaysia (Palgrave Macmillan 2019) and the article ‘Chinese Philosemitism and Historical Statecraft’ (China Quarterly 2021). Email: [email protected] http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5058-724X

Guy Podoler

Guy Podoler is Associate Professor in Korean Studies at the Department of Asian Studies at the University of Haifa. His areas of research include collective memory and commemoration, sports heritage, politics and diplomacy, and Israel–Korea relations. He is the author of Monuments, Memory, and Identity: Constructing the Colonial Past in South Korea (Peter Lang 2011). His articles have appeared in numerous journals as well as in several edited volumes. He is on the editorial board of the International Journal of the History of Sport (Middle East Academic Editorial Team) and serves as the senior book review editor for Asian Journal of Sport History and Culture. Email: [email protected] http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3282-7390