Sealed off from the rest of the world until the 19th century, Japan was one of the last countries in which Jews settled, and since then has never had more than a tiny Jewish population. As a result, anti-Semitism did not come to the island nation until relatively recently. Yaniv Pohoryles, in his review of a new Hebrew-language book on the subject, explains:

[I]t was ironically only after Jewish investment helped Japan beat Russia in their 1904-5 war that European anti-Semitic literature began to enter the country. [But] the Japanese reached entirely different conclusions from European anti-Semitic theorists. While the Germans believed that the solution to the anti-Semitic claim that “the Jews rule the world” is expulsion and annihilation, the Japanese concluded that they must learn from the Jews, connect with them, and implement the good things they do. In other words, their anti-Semitism became philo-Semitism.

“In order to understand the Japanese approach to the Jews, a few years ago we were visited by a senior Japanese delegation,” Ben-Ami Shiloni, [the book’s author], says. “After the meal, the leader of the group stood up, thanked the hosts, and said that he and the other members of the delegation knew very little about Jews and Israel before the trip. In preparation, they searched for a book on the subject and after reading it they felt that they now understand Israel’s success and the special position Jews hold.

“He then drew the book from his pocket and gave it to us as a gift—it was the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. This shows that classic anti-Semitic literature is seen by the Japanese as a model for success and imitation. In essence, they draw counterintuitive conclusions regarding the Jews and how to relate to them.”

While it is commendable that administrators of several universities finally called upon police to crack down on violent and disruptive anti-Israel protests, the actions they have taken may be insufficient. At Columbia, demonstrators reestablished their encampment on the main quad after it had been cleared by the police, and the university seems reluctant to use force again. The school also decided to hold classes remotely until the end of the semester. Such moves, whatever their merits, do nothing to fix the factors that allowed campuses to become hotbeds of pro-Hamas activism in the first place. The editors of National Review examine how things go to this point:

Since the 10/7 massacre, Columbia’s Jewish students have been forced to endure routine calls for their execution. It shouldn’t have taken the slaughter, rape, and brutalization of Israeli Jews to expose chants like “Globalize the intifada” and “Death to the Zionist state” as calls for violence, but the university refused to intervene on behalf of its besieged students. When an Israeli student was beaten with a stick outside Columbia’s library, it occasioned little soul-searching from faculty. Indeed, it served only as the impetus to establish an “Anti-Semitism Task Force,” which subsequently expressed “serious concerns” about the university’s commitment to enforcing its codes of conduct against anti-Semitic violators.

But little was done. Indeed, as late as last month the school served as host to speakers who praised the 10/7 attacks and even “hijacking airplanes” as “important tactics that the Palestinian resistance have engaged in.”

The school’s lackadaisical approach created a permission structure to menace and harass Jewish students, and that’s what happened. . . . Now is the time finally to do something about this kind of harassment and associated acts of trespass and disorder. Yale did the right thing when police cleared out an encampment [on Monday]. But Columbia remains a daily reminder of what happens when freaks and haters are allowed to impose their will on campus.