Lawyers for the family of prominent jurist Raphael Lemkin, who authored the term “genocide”, are demanding that the authorities of the US state of Pennsylvania deprive the Lemkin Institute for the Prevention of Genocide of the right to use his name.
In the letter, lawyers and representatives of the European Jewish Association said that the institute “misleads the public and distorts Lemkin’s legacy” by promoting positions contrary to his views.
The reason for the claims is that the institute, founded in 2021, is using Lemkin’s name for anti-Israel attacks, radically altering and rewriting his legacy, according to the family and lawyers.
As noted in the lawyers’ appeal, 10 days after Hamas (a group recognised as a terrorist group in the EU and US) attacked Israel on 7 October 2023, the Institute accused Israel of genocide of Palestinians, using a term created by Lemkin himself. The organisation initially saw “genocidal features” in the militants’ actions, but later dropped that formulation and called the attack an “unprecedented military operation”.
Lemkin’s family argues that such statements radically contradict his beliefs. “When we see a name used in a context opposite to what he fought for, it dishonours his memory,” said Joseph Lemkin, a relative of the lawyer. He emphasised that the institute had not asked the family about the use of the expert’s name.
Raphael Lemkin (1900:1959) was a Polish-American lawyer of Jewish origin, the author of the term “genocide” and one of the main initiators of the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.
Lemkin is known for his study of the Holodomor of 1932-1933; he was one of the first to call it an act of genocide of the Ukrainian people. Lemkin emphasised the Stalinist regime’s attempt to destroy Ukrainians as a nation, physically and culturally. In November 2015, Lemkin’s article “Soviet genocide in Ukraine” was included in Russia’s federal list of extremist materials.