Wall Street Financier Jacob Schiff, Chairman of Kuhn, Loeb & Co. finances underdog Japan against Tsarist Russia in the Russo–Japanese War of 1904–5, shortly subsequent to then–recent (anti–Jewish) pogroms in Kishinev (Russia).
Stunning the world, but not stunning their astute financier, the Japanese defeat the Russians. Schiff subsequently (1905) awarded the (Japanese) Order of the Sacred Treasure, and in 1907, the Order of the Rising Sun and then, the first foreigner to be awarded the Order of the Emperor Meji (in the Imperial Palace).
In the 1940s, Japan would defy its axis ally the Nazis, and instead of persecuting any Jews within its reach, would de facto offer them safe haven and then shield them (in Shanghai, then under the Japanese Occupation) from any Nazi encroachments (“the Schiff effect”). Included among the rescuees – the entire student body of the legendary Mir Yeshiva was transported from Mir, Poland (now Belarus) across Russia/Siberia eastward to Shanghai – and saved.