Family member of lawyer who coined ‘genocide’ seeks to strip name from group accusing Israel of atrocity

A family member of Raphael Lemkin, a Jewish lawyer who escaped Europe during World War II and coined the term “genocide,” is in a fight to have his name removed from a Pennsylvania nonprofit organization that accuses Israel of the exact term he came up with.

The Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention and Human Security has “warned of genocide in Gaza since Oct. 13, 2023,” less than a week after Hamas terror attacks killed about 1,200 and resulted in the capture of 251 hostages in 2023.

On Oct. 28, 2023, the institute issued a “statement of mourning for the Gazans and the world,” saying that “these two major military powers [the U.S. and Israel] are committing genocide in Gaza only weeks after actively enabling genocide against another besieged people: the Armenians of Artsakh.” It also warned that “if the world allows these two powers to continue to act with this level of impunity, genocide will become the normative policy of both dictatorships and the world’s so-called democracies alike.”

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The man calling for the change is Joseph Lemkin — whose father was Raphael’s cousin — and the sole survivor after his family of six was killed during the Holocaust. Joseph told Fox News Digital that growing up the son of a Holocaust survivor meant being followed by “a black cloud” that colored his entire life.

In one example, he explained that when the families at his Jewish day school placed ads during an annual banquet to celebrate their successes, his father wrote a yearly commemoration of the memories of his more than 40 family members who died during the Holocaust, including his parents and brother killed at Auschwitz and two brothers who died after joining underground resistance groups.

He said his father raised funds for the impoverished Raphael’s funeral when he died in 1959, and worked until weeks before his death to fundraise for the betterment of his fellow Jewish Americans.

Joseph’s experience as the child of a Holocaust survivor came to mind again when his teenage son showed him a social media post from the Lemkin Institute using the family name to accuse Israel of genocide.

“Seeing the impact and how my son came across it made me really more concerned about it,” Lemkin said.

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In an effort to keep the family name from being “turned on its head,” he said he has worked with the European Jewish Association (EJA) to submit a letter of complaint to the office of Democrat Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and to Pennsylvania’s Department of State’s Bureau of Corporations and Charitable Organizations. In June, Lemkin and his team also sent out letters referencing their concerns to other leaders in Pennsylvania.

In response to a request from Shapiro’s office for additional information, Lemkin and the EJA submitted a 32-page comprehensive legal submission and statement of facts and a 58-page evidentiary appendix in April 2025. He said that he believes that an investigation has been opened into the complaint.

Pennsylvania’s Department of State spokesman, Geoff Morrow, told Fox News Digital “the Department [of State] cannot confirm or deny whether any organization has had a complaint filed against it or is under investigation.”

Gov. Shapiro’s office did not respond to requests for comment from Fox News Digital.

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In an Oct. 13, 2025 press release responding to an op-ed, The Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention stated that “it is very hard to imagine that Raphael Lemkin would not have seen the genocidal dynamics of the present conflict early on, given his definition of the term and his historical studies. We share Raphael Lemkin’s belief in the need for a Jewish national home, but that has not meant that we are unable to see the genocide before our eyes.”

The same press release also noted that “Joseph Lemkin does not speak for the entire Lemkin family, nor does he officially represent a Lemkin estate. We have Lemkin family members on our side who reached out to us after October 7, 2023. Peter Lemkin, in whose childhood home Raphael Lemkin was a frequent visitor, has been particularly supportive, offering encouragement, sharing insights into Lemkin’s work, and informing us of his family’s close collaboration in the effort to get the Genocide Convention ratified by states.”

In a statement to Fox News Digital, the institute again questioned Joseph’s representation of Raphael, stating in part that “Over the years, members of the Lemkin family have reached out to express their support for our work. Joseph Lemkin has expressed his disagreement with our work. There is no legal battle between the Lemkin Institute and the Lemkin family.”

Peter Lemkin did not respond to Fox News Digital’s requests for comment. Nor did another family member identified to Fox News Digital by the institute as being supportive of its work. 

The statement to Fox News Digital continued, “The Institute was founded in 2016/2017. In 2021, it was renamed to honor the life and work of Raphael Lemkin, whose research and moral commitments, reflected not only in the 1948 Genocide Convention but also in the many case studies he completed before his untimely death at age 59, have deeply influenced the work of the Institute’s founders. Since Raphael Lemkin died without heirs or an estate, there was no official representative for the Lemkin family to contact for permission,” it stated.

The statement also noted that “The Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention is an all-volunteer organization founded to fill the gaps in genocide prevention that co-founders Dr. Elisa von Joeden-Forgey and Dr. Irene Massimino observed during several visits to Northern Iraq in 2016 and 2017, when they met with religious leaders, government officials, and survivors of ISIS genocide, including Yezidi, Christians, Shabak-Shia, Kakay and other religious, national, and ethnic minorities.

It continued, “This includes, of course, security for the Jewish people, who continue to be the targets of one of the oldest and most lethal global genocidal ideologies — antisemitism. This also includes Palestinians, Darfuris, Armenians, Artsakhsis, Rohingya, Ukrainians, Uighurs, Amhara, trans people, Yezidis, many Christian populations, many Muslim populations, Somalilanders, Kurds, the Karakalpak, many Black and Native communities in the Western Hemisphere, and far too many other groups to mention here. Our world is unfortunately awash in genocide and it benefits all humanity for all of us to be involved in preventing the crime.”

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The institute utilized the October 2025 press release to start a fundraising campaign “to cover urgent legal fees, hire a full-time administrator, and ensure the survival of the Lemkin Institute.” They stated that “the attempt to discredit us or to shut down our work is part of a wider effort to silence opposition to Israel’s genocide in the USA. But we will not allow our work to be smeared, or our voices to be silenced.”

Israeli civil rights attorney and president of the Shurat HaDin Law Center, Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, who is not party to the dispute, told Fox News Digital that “the real question is not simply ‘standing,’ but whether the Institute has a lawful right to use Raphael Lemkin’s name in a manner that implies his endorsement, his family’s authorization, or fidelity to his beliefs. The Institute apparently never received permission from Lemkin, his estate, or an authorized representative when it appropriated the name. While using a deceased scholar’s name is not automatically unlawful, it becomes legally actionable when it misleads donors and the public, creates a false impression of endorsement, constitutes deceptive charitable solicitation, or appropriates the reputation and goodwill attached to that individual’s identity.”

Commenting recently on the growing threat of antisemitism worldwide after the Hamas attacks of Oct. 7, 2023, renowned historian Sir Simon Schama called accusations that Israel has committed genocide in Gaza a “blood libel” in his keynote address at the Holocaust Educational Trust on Sept. 7. Schama stated that “We, the victims of the greatest genocide the world has ever seen, are being called perpetrators of genocide.”

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The Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention has published multiple reports on the Israel-Gaza war which allege genocide by Israel. On May 28, 2024, they wrote that “even if there were legitimate doubts about Israel’s genocide, there is no doubt that Israel is committing atrocity crimes of the most barbaric kind. Israel must be stopped.” 

The Institute also said it is “disgusted by Western leaders, especially in the USA, Germany, and the U.K. They have demonstrated not only that they don’t care one bit about genocide prevention and human rights, but also that they are willing to allow an ally to commit atrocity crimes while they offer material and diplomatic support.” The Lemkin Institute suggested that “they should also be put on trial.”