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Notes -
Hmmm, echoing what @Amadan said, as an Easterner, I think we don't care about Jews so much as just accept that Jews are powerful. Kinda like what Amadan already said, it's like a given that "Jews control the [Western] world". At the most basic level, East Asians identify and relate with Jewish attitudes towards education and community. Albert Einstein being a Jew and then all the scientists that worked on the Manhattan project, and then the disproportionate overperformance of Jews with the Nobel prize is like sweet candy to the education-loving Asians. You know how Asian parents compare you to your successful cousins, Jews being powerful is the example of a successful race/community. And community is important to Asians because they do think continuing being "Asian" is a good thing and they look to Jews as an example of how a particular ethnic group retains what makes them them while functioning in the modern Western context.
So with all that context, I actually don't think it's a grift, I think this professor is a genuine believer in whatever he's teaching. A reduced comparison would be like if someone teaches about the Rwanda Genocide and says that power is in the hands of the Tutsi minority historically and in the present (absent of about 40 year period that culminated in said genocide). Since most Asians already have a good impression of this minority, and verifiably we see lots of Jews being big and powerful, it's not a big leap for a person to believe the grander theories as well.
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