Setsuzo Kotsuji
Japanese linguist
Abraham Setsuzō Kotsuji (小辻 節三, Kotsuji Setsuzō; 1899, Kyoto – 31 October 1973) was a Japanese Orientalist and Hebraist, the son of a Shinto priest from a long line of priests. During the Holocaust he assisted Jewish refugees—first in Kobe and later in Japanese-occupied Shanghai—and spoke out against Nazi-inspired anti-Jewish propaganda. A Japanese-language biography about his aid to refugees was written by actor Jundai Yamada and published in 2013 by NHK Shuppan.
He converted to Judaism in 1959, having earlier converted from Shinto to Christianity in his youth. In his memoir From Tokyo to Jerusalem he described his religious journey and lifelong engagement with Hebrew and the Bible.
He first encountered Jews while working for the South Manchuria Railroad Company during World War II.
Early life and education
Kotsuji was born in Kyoto to an aristocratic Shinto family; his father was a kannushi (Shinto priest). As a teenager he read a Japanese translation of the Bible, which led him to monotheism and study with Christian missionaries; he converted to Presbyterian Christianity and began studying Hebrew. He later pursued philological studies in the United States and completed a doctorate in Hebrew and Jewish studies at Kyoto University.
Hebraist and academic activity
In 1937 he published a major work on Hebrew language and grammar and founded a faculty for Bible and Hebrew studies at a Tokyo university, attracting many students and becoming a leading Japanese authority on Hebrew. He also tutored Prince Mikasa, the younger brother of Emperor Hirohito.
“Setsuzo Kotsuji” enters the record as japanese linguist. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Setsuzo, Kotsuji and Japanese can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7456855. VIAF identifies the subject as 266143549. The Library of Congress control number is no2014099227. 1 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1899, 1973, 2013 and 1959.
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This entry incorporates text from “Setsuzo Kotsuji” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.