Japan' s Jewish 'Other': Antisemitism in Prewar and Wartime Japan

• Main Author: Pallister, Casey J., 1981-
• Language: en_US
• Published: University of Oregon 2008
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/1794/7780

viii, 111 p. A print copy of this thesis is available through the UO Libraries. Search the library catalog for the location and call number. === Although the Japanese government did not persecute European Jewish refugees who came to reside within the borders of its growing empire in the 1930s and early 1940s, Japanese antisemitism increased in fervency during the war years. With government officials, intellectuals, and the media serving as conduits to the Japanese public, the "Jewish enemy" was blamed for a wide range of domestic and international problems. The negative characteristics attributed to Jews served to highlight, by contrast, the positive characteristics with which Japanese identified their own nationality, morality, and humanity. "The Jews" thus assumed the role of the antithetical Western "Other," providing Japanese with a tangible focus for their wrath against the wartime Western enemy. Japanese antisemitism, in short, was not a pale reflection of Nazism, as some have argued, but rather was part and parcel of the long-standing Japanese essentialization of the Western "Other." === Adviser: Jeffrey E. Hanes