The Man Who Coined "Genocide" Would Be Horrified by This

The Lemkin Family and European Jewish Association are calling for an investigation of the Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention, Inc.

In 1944, Raphael Lemkin, a Polish Jewish lawyer and survivor, coined the term “genocide” to describe the murder of six million Jews during the Holocaust. Lemkin, who lost 49 members of his family, including his parents wrote, “Genocide does not necessarily mean the immediate destruction of a nation. It is intended rather to signify a coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves.”

Post October 7, groups all around the world have been accusing Israel of genocide in Gaza, wrongfully stating that the Jewish nation is trying to wipe out the Palestinians. While some of those groups are not surprising – like Students for Justice in Palestine – one of them certainly is: The Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention.

Taking Back the Lemkin Name

The Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention, located in Pennsylvania, has repeatedly claimed that what Israel is doing is genocide.

One article on the website is titled, “Four Facts about Israel’s Genocide,” and fact two is, “Israel is Committing Genocide Across Palestine.” It states, “Israel’s genocide against Palestinians involves the planned and entirely intentional murder and forced displacement of all Palestinians from their ancestral homes across historical Palestine using all available means. It has been going on since Israel’s founding, but sped up significantly first after Netanyahu assumed power in 2022 and again after October 7, 2023. The vast majority of Israelis agree with this plan and clearly will support anything to see it realized – from apartheid to extermination. The goal is to create a Greater Israel that is completely cleansed of Palestinian life.”

Now, the Lemkin family, along with the European Jewish Association (EJA), is urging authorities to examine if the Institute’s use of the Lemkin name – which they never got permission to use – violates the law.

“An organization calling itself the ‘Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention’ has used his name for four years — without ever asking his family, without their knowledge or consent — and turned it into a weapon against the very Jewish state Lemkin championed,” said Rabbi Menachem Margolin, chairman of the EJA. “What has been taken is a sacred legacy. Taken from the Lemkin family, who have served as guardians of his name at the United Nations for more than sixty years; and taken from the Jewish people, to whom that legacy belongs. To ‘reclaim’ it means to insist that the name of a passionate Zionist who coined ‘genocide’ to describe the murder of Jews cannot be hijacked to accuse Jews of genocide.”

The campaign to remove Raphael Lemkin’s name from the Institute has involved sending individually verified letters to Governor Josh Shapiro, Attorney General Dave Sunday, senior officials at the U.S. Department of Justice, including Leo Terrell, the Internal Revenue Service, the U.S. Department of the Treasury, Pennsylvania legislative leaders, and members of Pennsylvania’s congressional delegation.

The weaponization of ‘genocide’ against Israel has become one of the central engines of contemporary antisemitism.

“We became involved because this is one of the most egregious cases of name misappropriation in modern Jewish life, and because the weaponization of ‘genocide’ against Israel has become one of the central engines of contemporary antisemitism,” said Margolin. “Why now? Because the accusations escalated, because the family asked for partners willing to stand with them, and because a moment finally came when the Institute’s conduct could actually be challenged — legally, in Pennsylvania where it is registered, and morally, in the court of public opinion. When a Jewish family asks for help protecting a Jewish legacy, we do not hesitate.

Joseph Lemkin, Raphael’s cousin, said, “To reclaim the Lemkin name is to restore its integrity. His legacy has been misappropriated by those who distort the very definition he fought to establish.”

For Joseph, the campaign is deeply personal.

“I grew up hearing about Raphael at a time when he was still largely an unrecognized figure, while also living with the weight of what our family lost in the Holocaust,” he said. “That loss was always present. Both of my father’s parents and one brother were murdered in Auschwitz, and two other brothers were killed as underground fighters. To see Raphael’s life’s work now invoked in ways that contradict his intent—and used by those who seek to undermine or destroy Israel—feels like a betrayal of his legacy and a profound disrespect to the memory of our family.”

Genocide and Israel

While there have unfortunately been innocent casualties in the war in Gaza, there is no evidence that Israel is committing a genocide. But that doesn’t stop groups from throwing around the word.

“The term ‘genocide’ has a precise legal definition requiring intent to destroy a people,” said Joseph. “Applying it to Israel without meeting that standard empties the word of meaning and undermines its use in identifying real atrocities.”

According to Margolin, the Institute began accusing Israel of genocide on October 17, 2023, just 10 days after the Hamas massacre. This is before a single Israeli soldier entered Gaza.

“That is not a legal finding; it is a political slogan,” the rabbi said. “Even the International Court of Justice declined to order the ceasefire it would have ordered had genocide actually been established. And 112 of the world’s leading Holocaust and genocide scholars — including the former director of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum — have stated plainly that the accusation is false. By Lemkin’s own standard, what Hamas did on October 7 looks far closer to the crime he named than Israel’s response to it.”

Speaking the Truth

What Lemkin taught the world is that genocide doesn’t start with the gas chamber. Instead, it begins with words, the dehumanization of a people, and with redefining the victims as perpetrators, as the anti-Israel crowd has done.

“When you take the gravest accusation in international law, genocide, and pin it falsely on the Jewish state, and by extension on the Jews who support it, you are not merely engaging in debate,” said Margolin. “You are granting permission. You are signaling to the unstable and the hateful that violence against Jews is not terror but justice.”

Moving forward, the Lemkin family and the EJA hope to restore the precision and moral weight of the term “genocide,” and truthfully carry on Raphael’s enduring legacy.

“The world owes Lemkin fidelity to the meaning he fought to establish,” Joseph said. “Honoring him requires using the term ‘genocide’ with the precision and seriousness he intended, not as a slogan or a rhetorical weapon divorced from its legal and moral foundations. Too often today, the term is invoked casually, particularly in environments where strong language substitutes for careful understanding. That kind of misuse does more than dilute the word; it undermines its ability to identify and respond to atrocities.”

He continued, “Respecting Lemkin’s legacy means preserving the clarity and gravity of the concept he gave the world, not allowing it to be reshaped by misinformation and impulse.”