Rabbi Marvin Tokayer began his rabbinic career in 1962 as a U.S. Air Force chaplain stationed in southern Japan. In 1968, he returned to serve as rabbi of the one-thousand-member Jewish Community of Japan, a post he held until 1976; he remains Lifetime Honorary Rabbi of the community. He also served on the Federation of Jewish Communities of Southeast Asia and the Far East and as Founding Board Member of the Sino-Judaic Institute. Consummate storyteller Rabbi Tokayer contributed seven articles on rabbinics and the Orient for the Encyclopedia Judaica; authored twenty books in Japanese on Judaica and Japan; and coauthored (with Mary Swartz) The Fugu Plan – The Untold Story of the Japanese and the Jews during World War II.

Ellen Rodman, PhD is a writer, producer, and the president of LN Productions LLC, a production and media consulting company based in New York. Prior to founding her own company, Dr. Rodman served as an executive at NBC, where she launched the first missing children's campaign in connection with the broadcast of the made-for-television movie “Adam,” and at Group W where she accepted a DuPont Columbia Award for “Whispering Hope,” the company's outreach program on Alzheimer's disease. The former family entertainment reviewer for The New York Times, Dr. Rodman is also the author of numerous magazine and newspaper articles on subjects ranging from education and health to animals and culture.