[1] The Jewish community in Kobe in the early to mid 1900s consisted mainly of Russian, German, and Baghdadi Jews from what is currently Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Iran, and other places in Central Asia and the Middle East.

[1] In the 1930s, antisemitism became more prevalent, due to pacts signed with Germany in 1936 and 1940, as well as propaganda campaigns to turn the Japanese public against the "Jewish peril.

[3] During World War II, Japanese policy towards Jewish people was that those holding citizenship of a country would be afforded the same treatment as those from that country, and Jewish people designated as stateless — typically German and Polish Jews who had their citizenship revoked — were placed under surveillance due to their racial characteristics, similarly to their treatment of Russians.

[2] While there were individual incidents of harassment and some Jews were held in detention camps in Japan occupied Malaya, now Malaysia, throughout the duration of the war, Jewish people as a whole were treated no worse than citizens of neutral countries.

One exception was the request for French Indochina to institute similar restrictions of Jews to citizens of neutral countries with anti-Axis views.