Setsuzō Kotsuji was a Hebrew professor in Japan, and the son of a Shinto

Shinto

or Shintoism, also kami-no-michi, is the indigenous spirituality of Japan and the Japanese people. It is a set of practices, to be carried out diligently, to establish a connection between present day Japan and its ancient past. Shinto practices were first recorded and codified in the written...

 priest who descended from a long line of Shinto priests. During the Holocaust he helped Jewish refugees to escape the Nazis, arranging for them to stay first in Kobe

Kobe

, pronounced , is the fifth-largest city in Japan and is the capital city of Hyōgo Prefecture on the southern side of the main island of Honshū, approximately west of Osaka...

 and later in Japanese-occupied Shanghai

Shanghai

Shanghai is the largest city by population in China and the largest city proper in the world. It is one of the four province-level municipalities in the People's Republic of China, with a total population of over 23 million as of 2010...

. He also fought against Nazi-inspired anti-Jewish propaganda.

He converted to Judaism in 1959 after converting to Christianity from Shinto in his youth. In his book "From Tokyo to Jerusalem" he explained that he never was satisfied from his conversion to Christianity.

He first encountered Jews while working for the South Manchuria Railroad Company during WWII.