R Kowner
Biographic Data
| ID | 14190 |
|---|---|
| NAME | R Kowner |
| GIVEN NAMES | R |
| FAMILY NAME | Kowner |
| SIGNATURE | KOWNER R |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Haifa |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-2489-2990 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 29 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 21 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 29 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2000 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
The Manchurian saviour? Re-examining the 'Otpor Incident' in imperial and contemporary Japan
In recent years, the Japanese public has hailed a new national hero, the late Lieutenant General Higuchi Kiichirō. Unlike other notable military figures of his era, Higuchi's heroism is unconventional, if not unique. Despite playing a leading role in the defence of Hokkaido against the Soviet Red Army in 1945, it is humanitarian efforts that have cemented Higuchi's lasting legacy in public memory. Presently, a plethora of publications, TV documen…
Jewish Communities in Modern Asia: Underlying Commonalities, Demographic Features and Distinctive Characteristics
This concluding chapter examines the underlying commonalities, demographic features and distinctive characteristics of the Jewish settlement in modern Asia as they appear in this volume and analyzes them along the ten lines of investigation presented in the Introduction. This chapter provides also estimates for the size of the various communities since 1850 and offers illuminating insights into the contribution of the Jewish communities to Asia o…
When antisemitism and philosemitism go hand in hand: Attitudes to Jews in contemporary East Asia
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 …
A Holocaust Paragon of Virtue’s Rise to Fame
During the summer of 1940, Sugihara Chiune (1900–1986), the Japanese consul in Lithuania, issued transit visas to several thousand Polish-citizen refugees, mostly Jews. His willingness to do so was instrumental in their departure overseas shortly after the country was taken over by Soviet forces. Almost a year later, as Operation Barbarossa unfolded, the Jewish community in Lithuania, along with the remaining refugees, was brutally annihilated. D…
Kase Hideaki's Revisionist Vision for Twenty-First-Century Japan: A Final Interview and Obituary
The late writer and journalist Kase Hideaki was long involved in shaping public opinion in Japan. Espousing a conservative and nationalist worldview, he chaired several major associations that sought to revise Japan's constitution and embellish its history. In an interview shortly before he passed away last November, Kase discussed his upbringing and his political and social outlook. This article offers a brief obituary of Kase and explores his w…
The Mir Yeshiva’s Holocaust Experience: Ultra-Orthodox Perspectives on Japanese Wartime Attitudes towards Jewish Refugees
The exodus of Jewish refugees from Lithuania to East Asia in late 1940 has become one of the most remarkable stories of rescue during the Holocaust. The largest group among these refugees was the Mir Yeshiva—one of Europe’s most notable Jewish educational institutions at the time, and the only Lithuanian yeshiva to survive the war in its entirety. Recent studies of this story have emphasized the role of the rescuers—particularly the Japanese vice…
Time to Remember, Time to Forget: The Battle of Tsushima in Japanese Collective Memory since 1905
The Battle of Tsushima was fought between Japan and Russia in 1905. It was the most notable naval battle during the century before the First World War and one of the most decisive naval clashes ever. Although it has left a deep and indelible mark on both belligerents, it was only natural that the battle would remain a center point in the collective memory of the country that won it. Indeed, throughout the years before Japan's surrender in 1945, a…
The Imitation Game
Rotem Kowner provides a concise overview of the development of Japanese attitudes towards Jews. Despite the virtual absence of any historical or religious roots for conflict, soon after the onset of its modernisation, Japan witnessed the emergence of relatively benign antisemitic and philosemitic views, which, by the 1920s, had led to increased polarisation. During what is known as the Fifteen Year War (1931–45), these attitudes turned into an or…
Rethinking Japanese Studies: Eurocentrism and the Asia-Pacific Region
Japanese Studies emerged as an academic field in the postwar era. It was an interdisciplinary discipline under the umbrella of Area Studies that initially developed in the United States with an unm
Under the Shadow of the Rising Sun: Japan and the Jews during the Holocaust Era
During World War II and the Holocaust, some 40,000 Jews of various nationalities were living in the eastern confines of the Asian continent, stretching from Manchuria in the north to Java in the so
When economics, strategy, and racial ideology meet: Inter-Axis connections in the wartime Indian Ocean
Japan’s relations with Germany and Italy during the Second World War were rather limited. Nevertheless, there were some regional nuances and growing cooperation as the war drew to its close. In the Indian Ocean, at least, and especially in the area around the Straits of Malacca and the Java Sea, the Japanese and German empires, and to a lesser extent the Italian empire too, did develop a rather intensive cooperation during the final two years of …
Japan and the Rise of the Idea of Race: The Meiji Era Fusion of Foreign and Domestic Constructions
Ethnic Nationalism in Postwar Japan: Nihonjinron and Its Racial Facets
Chapter Four Between Contempt and Fear: Western Racial Constructions of East Asians since 1800
Linnaeus, Buffon, Kant, Blumenbach and many other great luminaries of modern racial thought lived and worked in the eighteenth century. It was indeed a seminal period in the construction of European racial outlook. This chapter focuses on a number of pivotal issues that shaped those constructions and led to significant political and ideological outcomes. It discusses the initial shift of power between the West and East Asia and its impact on the …
Chapter One Modern East Asia and the Rise of Racial Thought: Possible Links, Unique Features and Unsettled Issues
Racism, this alleged survivor of the race idea, is a much newer concept and at the same time a far older phenomenon. Despite the etymological similarity between racism and race, the relations between these two concepts are neither evident nor necessarily of a cause and effect nature. A grey area seems to separate racism from ethnic prejudice. While both deal with categorical generalizations based on subjective and usually inadequate data, what ap…
Race and Racism in Modern East Asia: Western and Eastern Constructions
Race and Racism in Modern East Asia juxtaposes Western racial constructions of East Asians with constructions of race and their outcomes in modern East Asia. It is the first endeavor to explicitly and coherently link constructions of race and racism in both regions. These constructions have not only played a decisive role in shaping the relations between the West and East Asia since the mid nineteenth century, but also exert substantial influence…
The Japanese Internment of Jews in Wartime Indonesia and Its Causes
It was only in the early 20th century that the Jews living in the Dutch East Indies began to form a substantial community. On the eve of the Pacific War it comprised a few thousand members, mostly of Dutch origin, and several hundred ‘Baghdadis’ as well as refugees escaping Nazi persecution in Europe. The Japanese occupation of the archipelago in early 1942 triggered the disintegration of the community. Within a few months the greater part of the…
Imperial Japan And Its POWs: The Dilemma Of Humaneness And National Identity
Modern warfare could well be summed up in two phrases: annihilation and humanitarian concern. This chapter focuses on the actual behaviour and attitude to prisoners of wars (POWs) held by Japan, rather than on its images. It is based on a systematic analysis of the treatment of POWs in six major wars fought by Imperial Japan from 1894 to 1945. With these data at hand, this chapter aims to uncover the determinants of the Japanese treatment of POWs…
The High Road To The First World War? Europe And The Outcomes Of The Russo-Japanese War, 1904–14
This chapter considers the repercussions of the Russo-Japanese War on six major European powers during the decade starting in 1904 and analyses their significance in a continental perspective. The Rashomon-like narratives of the powers focus on the road each of them, and the continent as a whole, took towards the First World War. The contention of the chapter is that the Russo-Japanese War shook the long stability in Europe and caused the 'rigidi…
Rethinking the Russo-Japanese War, 1904-5: Volume 1: Centennial Perspectives
Despite the growing number of publications on the Russo-Japanese War, an abundance of questions and issues related to this topic remain unsolved, or call for a reexamination. This 30-chapter volume, the first in the two-volume project Rethinking the Russo-Japanese War, provides a comprehensive reexamination of the origins of the conflict, the various dimensions of the nineteen-month conflagration, the legacy of the war, and its place in the histo…
Between a colonial clash and World War Zero: The impact of the Russo-Japanese War in a global perspective
On the morning of February 6, 1904, Japan severed its diplomatic relations with Russia. The same day, the Japanese Combined Fleet under the command of Admiral Tøgø Heihachirø set sail for the shores of Korea. Off the port city of Chemulpo, in the vicinity of the capital Seoul, the force split into two. Most of the warships made for Port Arthur while a small naval force under Rear Admiral Ury¥ Sotokichi remained to protect the landing of the army …
Skin as a Metaphor: Early European Racial Views on Japan, 1548-1853
Research Article| October 01 2004 Skin as a Metaphor: Early European Racial Views on Japan, 1548-1853 Rotem Kowner Rotem Kowner Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Ethnohistory (2004) 51 (4): 751–778. https://doi.org/10.1215/00141801-51-4-751 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Tools Icon Tools Permissions Cite Icon Ci…
Culture and Status-Related Behavior: Japanese and American Perceptions of Interaction in Asymmetric Dyads
In examining the pattern of status-related behavior in the United States and Japan, the authors compared perceptions of verbal and nonverbal behaviors of lower and higher status people in asymmetric dyadic interaction using 105 behavioral scales. A similar gap was found between perceptions of behavior of lower and higher status people in both cultures, suggesting that this status-related behavior follows a fundamental pattern probably common acro…
Japanese communication in intercultural encounters: The barrier of status-related behavior
Becoming an Honorary Civilized Nation: Remaking Japan's Military Image during the Russo‐Japanese War, 1904‐1905
(2001). Becoming an Honorary Civilized Nation: Remaking Japan's Military Image during the Russo‐Japanese War, 1904‐1905. The Historian: Vol. 64, No. 1, pp. 19-38
Psychological perspective on human developmental stability and fluctuating asymmetry: Sources, applications and implications
In recent years researchers from diverse disciplines in the life sciences have turned their attention to the issue of developmental stability in the organism. Their key measure, fluctuating asymmetry (FA), is defined as the random, stress-induced deviations from perfect symmetry that develop during the development of bilaterally symmetrical traits. This is regarded as a promising measure of the stress experienced by individuals during their devel…
Lighter Than Yellow, but Not Enough: Western Discourse on the Japanese 'Race', 1854-1904
During the half century (1854-1904) which followed the opening of Japan's ports, Westerners scrutinized the rediscovered archipelago and attempted to classify its inhabitants within their racial system. Despite the claim for 'scientific' objectivism, Western racial views of the Japanese were largely dictated by contemporary political and moral attitudes toward Japan. Hence, writings on the Japanese 'race' reflected not only the racial knowledge o…
The Mir Yeshiva’s Holocaust Experience: Ultra-Orthodox Perspectives on Japanese Wartime Attitudes towards Jewish Refugees
The exodus of Jewish refugees from Lithuania to East Asia in late 1940 has become one of the most remarkable stories of rescue during the Holocaust. The largest group among these refugees was the Mir Yeshiva—one of Europe’s most notable Jewish educational institutions at the time, and the only Lithuanian yeshiva to survive the war in its entirety. Recent studies of this story have emphasized the role of the rescuers—particularly the Japanese vice…
Culture and Status-Related Behavior: Japanese and American Perceptions of Interaction in Asymmetric Dyads
In examining the pattern of status-related behavior in the United States and Japan, the authors compared perceptions of verbal and nonverbal behaviors of lower and higher status people in asymmetric dyadic interaction using 105 behavioral scales. A similar gap was found between perceptions of behavior of lower and higher status people in both cultures, suggesting that this status-related behavior follows a fundamental pattern probably common acro…
A Holocaust Paragon of Virtue’s Rise to Fame
During the summer of 1940, Sugihara Chiune (1900–1986), the Japanese consul in Lithuania, issued transit visas to several thousand Polish-citizen refugees, mostly Jews. His willingness to do so was instrumental in their departure overseas shortly after the country was taken over by Soviet forces. Almost a year later, as Operation Barbarossa unfolded, the Jewish community in Lithuania, along with the remaining refugees, was brutally annihilated. D…
When antisemitism and philosemitism go hand in hand: Attitudes to Jews in contemporary East Asia
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 …
Skin as a Metaphor: Early European Racial Views on Japan, 1548-1853
Research Article| October 01 2004 Skin as a Metaphor: Early European Racial Views on Japan, 1548-1853 Rotem Kowner Rotem Kowner Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Ethnohistory (2004) 51 (4): 751–778. https://doi.org/10.1215/00141801-51-4-751 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Tools Icon Tools Permissions Cite Icon Ci…
Japanese communication in intercultural encounters: The barrier of status-related behavior
Lighter Than Yellow, but Not Enough: Western Discourse on the Japanese 'Race', 1854-1904
During the half century (1854-1904) which followed the opening of Japan's ports, Westerners scrutinized the rediscovered archipelago and attempted to classify its inhabitants within their racial system. Despite the claim for 'scientific' objectivism, Western racial views of the Japanese were largely dictated by contemporary political and moral attitudes toward Japan. Hence, writings on the Japanese 'race' reflected not only the racial knowledge o…
Becoming an Honorary Civilized Nation: Remaking Japan's Military Image during the Russo‐Japanese War, 1904‐1905
(2001). Becoming an Honorary Civilized Nation: Remaking Japan's Military Image during the Russo‐Japanese War, 1904‐1905. The Historian: Vol. 64, No. 1, pp. 19-38
Cultural policy on loanword adoption in modern Japanese and Hebrew: A comparative study
(2001). Cultural policy on loanword adoption in modern Japanese and Hebrew: A comparative study. International Journal of Cultural Policy: Vol. 7, No. 3, pp. 521-548
Tokyo recognizes Auschwitz: The rise and fall of Holocaust denial in Japan, 1989-1999
In February of 1999 the Tokyo District Court ruled that Nazi Germany had murdered in its concentration camps many Jews by poison gas, as had been determined by the international tribunal for war crimes at Nuremberg. By con rming the basic fact of the Holocaust, the Japanese judicial system ended more than three years of confusion regarding the status of the Holocaust and the legitimacy of its denial in Japan (Kajimura et al., 1999). Furthermore, …
Psychological perspective on human developmental stability and fluctuating asymmetry: Sources, applications and implications
In recent years researchers from diverse disciplines in the life sciences have turned their attention to the issue of developmental stability in the organism. Their key measure, fluctuating asymmetry (FA), is defined as the random, stress-induced deviations from perfect symmetry that develop during the development of bilaterally symmetrical traits. This is regarded as a promising measure of the stress experienced by individuals during their devel…
Japanese communication in intercultural encounters: The barrier of status-related behavior
Culture and Status-Related Behavior: Japanese and American Perceptions of Interaction in Asymmetric Dyads
In examining the pattern of status-related behavior in the United States and Japan, the authors compared perceptions of verbal and nonverbal behaviors of lower and higher status people in asymmetric dyadic interaction using 105 behavioral scales. A similar gap was found between perceptions of behavior of lower and higher status people in both cultures, suggesting that this status-related behavior follows a fundamental pattern probably common acro…
Skin as a Metaphor: Early European Racial Views on Japan, 1548-1853
Research Article| October 01 2004 Skin as a Metaphor: Early European Racial Views on Japan, 1548-1853 Rotem Kowner Rotem Kowner Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Ethnohistory (2004) 51 (4): 751–778. https://doi.org/10.1215/00141801-51-4-751 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Tools Icon Tools Permissions Cite Icon Ci…
Between a colonial clash and World War Zero: The impact of the Russo-Japanese War in a global perspective
On the morning of February 6, 1904, Japan severed its diplomatic relations with Russia. The same day, the Japanese Combined Fleet under the command of Admiral Tøgø Heihachirø set sail for the shores of Korea. Off the port city of Chemulpo, in the vicinity of the capital Seoul, the force split into two. Most of the warships made for Port Arthur while a small naval force under Rear Admiral Ury¥ Sotokichi remained to protect the landing of the army …
Rethinking the Russo-Japanese War, 1904-5: Volume 1: Centennial Perspectives
Despite the growing number of publications on the Russo-Japanese War, an abundance of questions and issues related to this topic remain unsolved, or call for a reexamination. This 30-chapter volume, the first in the two-volume project Rethinking the Russo-Japanese War, provides a comprehensive reexamination of the origins of the conflict, the various dimensions of the nineteen-month conflagration, the legacy of the war, and its place in the histo…
The High Road To The First World War? Europe And The Outcomes Of The Russo-Japanese War, 1904–14
This chapter considers the repercussions of the Russo-Japanese War on six major European powers during the decade starting in 1904 and analyses their significance in a continental perspective. The Rashomon-like narratives of the powers focus on the road each of them, and the continent as a whole, took towards the First World War. The contention of the chapter is that the Russo-Japanese War shook the long stability in Europe and caused the 'rigidi…
Imperial Japan And Its POWs: The Dilemma Of Humaneness And National Identity
Modern warfare could well be summed up in two phrases: annihilation and humanitarian concern. This chapter focuses on the actual behaviour and attitude to prisoners of wars (POWs) held by Japan, rather than on its images. It is based on a systematic analysis of the treatment of POWs in six major wars fought by Imperial Japan from 1894 to 1945. With these data at hand, this chapter aims to uncover the determinants of the Japanese treatment of POWs…
The Japanese Internment of Jews in Wartime Indonesia and Its Causes
It was only in the early 20th century that the Jews living in the Dutch East Indies began to form a substantial community. On the eve of the Pacific War it comprised a few thousand members, mostly of Dutch origin, and several hundred ‘Baghdadis’ as well as refugees escaping Nazi persecution in Europe. The Japanese occupation of the archipelago in early 1942 triggered the disintegration of the community. Within a few months the greater part of the…
Race and Racism in Modern East Asia: Western and Eastern Constructions
Race and Racism in Modern East Asia juxtaposes Western racial constructions of East Asians with constructions of race and their outcomes in modern East Asia. It is the first endeavor to explicitly and coherently link constructions of race and racism in both regions. These constructions have not only played a decisive role in shaping the relations between the West and East Asia since the mid nineteenth century, but also exert substantial influence…
Chapter Four Between Contempt and Fear: Western Racial Constructions of East Asians since 1800
Linnaeus, Buffon, Kant, Blumenbach and many other great luminaries of modern racial thought lived and worked in the eighteenth century. It was indeed a seminal period in the construction of European racial outlook. This chapter focuses on a number of pivotal issues that shaped those constructions and led to significant political and ideological outcomes. It discusses the initial shift of power between the West and East Asia and its impact on the …
Chapter One Modern East Asia and the Rise of Racial Thought: Possible Links, Unique Features and Unsettled Issues
Racism, this alleged survivor of the race idea, is a much newer concept and at the same time a far older phenomenon. Despite the etymological similarity between racism and race, the relations between these two concepts are neither evident nor necessarily of a cause and effect nature. A grey area seems to separate racism from ethnic prejudice. While both deal with categorical generalizations based on subjective and usually inadequate data, what ap…
Ethnic Nationalism in Postwar Japan: Nihonjinron and Its Racial Facets
Japan and the Rise of the Idea of Race: The Meiji Era Fusion of Foreign and Domestic Constructions
Under the Shadow of the Rising Sun: Japan and the Jews during the Holocaust Era
During World War II and the Holocaust, some 40,000 Jews of various nationalities were living in the eastern confines of the Asian continent, stretching from Manchuria in the north to Java in the so
When economics, strategy, and racial ideology meet: Inter-Axis connections in the wartime Indian Ocean
Japan’s relations with Germany and Italy during the Second World War were rather limited. Nevertheless, there were some regional nuances and growing cooperation as the war drew to its close. In the Indian Ocean, at least, and especially in the area around the Straits of Malacca and the Java Sea, the Japanese and German empires, and to a lesser extent the Italian empire too, did develop a rather intensive cooperation during the final two years of …
The Imitation Game
Rotem Kowner provides a concise overview of the development of Japanese attitudes towards Jews. Despite the virtual absence of any historical or religious roots for conflict, soon after the onset of its modernisation, Japan witnessed the emergence of relatively benign antisemitic and philosemitic views, which, by the 1920s, had led to increased polarisation. During what is known as the Fifteen Year War (1931–45), these attitudes turned into an or…
Rethinking Japanese Studies: Eurocentrism and the Asia-Pacific Region
Japanese Studies emerged as an academic field in the postwar era. It was an interdisciplinary discipline under the umbrella of Area Studies that initially developed in the United States with an unm
The Mir Yeshiva’s Holocaust Experience: Ultra-Orthodox Perspectives on Japanese Wartime Attitudes towards Jewish Refugees
The exodus of Jewish refugees from Lithuania to East Asia in late 1940 has become one of the most remarkable stories of rescue during the Holocaust. The largest group among these refugees was the Mir Yeshiva—one of Europe’s most notable Jewish educational institutions at the time, and the only Lithuanian yeshiva to survive the war in its entirety. Recent studies of this story have emphasized the role of the rescuers—particularly the Japanese vice…
Time to Remember, Time to Forget: The Battle of Tsushima in Japanese Collective Memory since 1905
The Battle of Tsushima was fought between Japan and Russia in 1905. It was the most notable naval battle during the century before the First World War and one of the most decisive naval clashes ever. Although it has left a deep and indelible mark on both belligerents, it was only natural that the battle would remain a center point in the collective memory of the country that won it. Indeed, throughout the years before Japan's surrender in 1945, a…
Jewish Communities in Modern Asia: Underlying Commonalities, Demographic Features and Distinctive Characteristics
This concluding chapter examines the underlying commonalities, demographic features and distinctive characteristics of the Jewish settlement in modern Asia as they appear in this volume and analyzes them along the ten lines of investigation presented in the Introduction. This chapter provides also estimates for the size of the various communities since 1850 and offers illuminating insights into the contribution of the Jewish communities to Asia o…
Political science (23 works) · History (20 works) · Japanese History and Culture (19 works) · Law (16 works) · Sociology (12 works) · Ancient history (10 works) · Philosophy (8 works) · Psychology (8 works) · Archaeology (7 works) · Art (6 works)