Prof. Nissim Otmazgin

Prof. Nissim Otmazgin is the Chair of the Department of Asian Studies, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and Acting Director of the Harry S. Truman Research Institute for the Advancement of Peace. He is also a member of the Israeli Young Academy of Science and Humanities. A political scientist in training, his research interests include Japanese popular culture in Asia, popular culture and regionalization in East and Southeast Asia, Japan-Southeast Asian relations, and cultural industry and cultural policy in Japan and South Korea. His PhD dissertation (Kyoto University, 2007), which examines the export of Japan’s popular culture to Asia, won the Iue Asia Pacific Research Prize in October 2007 for outstanding dissertation on society and culture in Asia. As a part of this research, he conducted extensive fieldwork in Hong Kong, Singapore, Shanghai, Bangkok, and Seoul.

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Dr. Rhee Joo Yeon

Dr. Rhee Joo Yeon is a Lecturer in theDepartment of Asian Studies, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She teaches courses on modern Korean literature, film, popular culture, and cultural interactions between Korea and Japan. Her main research explores the relationship between gender and literature in colonial Korea; and her research interests include gender and ethnic identity in Korean literature and visual culture, food and gender in Korean popular culture, and Korean crime fiction.

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Dr. Danny Orbach

Dr. Danny Orbach is a military historian, and a senior lecturer in the departments of Asian Studies and history at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He studied in Tel Aviv, Tokyo and Harvard University, and received his PhD from the latter, under the supervision of Prof. Andrew Gordon. His latest book, The Plots against Hitler was recently published in English (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt), Italian and Hebrew, and is due to be published in Czech, Romanian and Spanish. His next book, Curse on this Country: The Rebellious Army of Imperial Japan was published by Cornell University Press (2017) and is forthcoming in Hebrew in Tel Aviv University Press).

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Kushelevich Hadas

Kushelevich Hadas is a Ph.D candidate at Osaka University, graduate school of law and politics. Hadas graduate her BA and MA from the Hebrew University, before her studies in Japan, 7 years ago. During her studies at the Hebrew University Hadas coordinated many of the Japanese studies social activities. During her studies at Osaka University Hadas establish an NPO for the advancement of Israel Japan Cultural and Academic relations. Hadas coordinating the HUJapan seminars since the first seminar in 2015.

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Gil Fosh

Gil Fosh is currently finishing his 3rd and last year of his bachelor’s degree in Business Administration and East Asia studies, focusing on Japan. He has also started his 1st year in his master’s degree in Finance, graduate by next year. East Asia’s culture has always interested him, probably because this culture is not so common in Israel, so He wanted to know more about something that is hard to find out about (when he was a kid internet wasn’t so evolved). Besides that, his hobbies are swimming, solving crosswords, and most importantly, playing with cats.

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Hana Ferdman

Hana Ferdman is 24 years old . In 2010 she moved to Israel from Ukraine and since then have been living in Jerusalem. Her first major is Social Work and the second major is Asian Studies.  Hana was exposed to Korean culture through Korean movies back in 2006, and now days she is gaining more deeper knowledge at the university and through traveling to Korea.