Ber Kotlerman is Professor in the Department of Jewish Literature at Bar-Ilan University (Israel), where he heads the Rena Costa Center for Yiddish Studies and the Sznajderman Chair in Yiddish Culture and Hasidism. Among his dozens of academic articles, monographs, and edited volumes in Hebrew, Yiddish, English, German, Japanese, and other languages, a prominent place is occupied by the modern Jewish history of East Asia – in particular, the Jewish aspects of the Russo-Japanese War, the resettlement of Jews to the Soviet Far East, the fate of Jewish refugees during the Second World War in Japan, China, and the Philippines, and Jewish–Japanese cultural relations. He served a visiting professor at Tohoku University in Sendai, Kokushikan University in Tokyo, Vytautas Magnus University in Kaunas, the University of Cape Town, the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research in Buenos Aires, and other institutions.