From Tokyo to Jerusalem: The Japanese Professor Who Helped Save Mir Yeshiva in the Holocaust

Elul 5719. Dozens of students from the illustrious Mir yeshiva squeeze into the small living room of Rabbi Chaim Shmulevitz. The occasion: a welcome reception for a longtime friend of the yeshiva and of the rosh yeshiva. His name is Rabbi Avraham Kotsuji. The guest, in a suit and a flat cap, speaks fluent Hebrew, yet something in his accent gives away a foreign origin... Still, it was hard to imagine that until just a year earlier the speaker's name had been Setsuzo Kotsuji, a professor of Oriental Studies at the University of Tokyo.

Setsuzo was born into a family of Shinto priests, adherents of Japan's native religion, and was raised to continue that tradition. His father expected him to become a Shinto priest as well. But as a young teen he found a Japanese translation of the Bible in a bookstore, bought it, and its words moved him deeply. He enrolled in Hebraic studies and Oriental Studies, delving into Jewish literature. In 1937 he published a book in Japanese on Hebrew grammar, and, as his success grew, he was appointed a professor at the University of Tokyo, building a reputation and connections across Japan's aristocracy.

During World War II, when the Mir yeshiva had gone into exile in Shanghai, the Japanese scholar heard about it and welcomed the chance to meet Jews up close. He grew close to the yeshiva students and its staff, learning much from them about Judaism. He used his connections with government officials, including Foreign Minister Matsuoka, to extend the residency permits of the yeshiva's members so they would not be expelled from the country.

When Japan joined Germany in the war, a wave of antisemitism swept the country. Kotsuji threw himself into fighting it, and, on a lecture tour nationwide as well as in a book he wrote, he argued that antisemitism was false and baseless — a Christian hatred of Jews that had nothing to do with Japan. Japanese authorities arrested him and tortured him during interrogations, suspecting him of collaborating with the enemy. He escaped this danger thanks to his connections and with the grace of Heaven.

After his remarkable rescue, he chose to draw close to Judaism in a concrete way. In time he underwent a halachic conversion and a brit milah, and thus found himself, as a Jew named R' Avraham ben Avraham Kotsuji, in the home of Rabbi Chaim Shmulevitz, together with the students of the Mir yeshiva whom he had helped a few years earlier. He later published his life story in a book titled From Tokyo to Jerusalem. Kotsuji passed away in Cheshvan 5734 and was buried on Har HaMenuchot in Jerusalem.