Family member of lawyer who coined 'genocide' seeks to strip name from group accusing Israel of atrocity
Family member of Holocaust scholar seeks removal of name from Pennsylvania nonprofit that accuses Israel of genocide
A descendant of Raphael Lemkin, the Jewish lawyer who coined the term “genocide,” has filed a formal complaint in Pennsylvania to have the Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention and Human Security cease using the family name. The institute, incorporated in the Keystone State, has publicly accused Israel of committing genocide in Gaza—a claim that the family says misrepresents its legacy and misleads the public.
The complaint was lodged by Joseph Lemkin, a relative of Raphael Lemkin, who is the sole survivor of a family of six that perished in the Holocaust. Joseph’s father—Raphael’s cousin—raised funds for the 1959 funeral of the genocide scholar and worked to support Jewish Americans after the war. “Growing up as the child of a Holocaust survivor has left a permanent shadow,” Joseph told reporters, recalling that his father commemorated over 40 relatives who died in the camps in school newsletters.
The Lemkin Institute, which incorporated in 2016/2017 and renamed in 2021, has issued a series of statements and press releases that it claims are in the spirit of its namesake’s work. On 13 October 2023, just weeks after the Hamas attack on 7 October that killed approximately 1,200 people and captured 251 hostages, the institute released a statement that warned “genocide will become the normative policy of both dictatorships and the world’s so‑called democracies alike.” The following month it issued a “statement of mourning for the Gazans and the world,” accusing the United States and Israel of genocide in Gaza and comparing the situation to the genocide of Armenians in Artsakh. In an 2025 press release, the institute reaffirmed its belief that “Raphael Lemkin would not have seen the genocidal dynamics of the present conflict early on,” while asserting that the organization’s use of the Lemkin name was intended to honor the scholar’s legacy.
Joseph Lemkin began to question the use of the family name after his teenage son encountered a social‑media post by the institute that branded Israel a genocidal actor. “Seeing the impact and how my son came across it made me really more concerned about it,” he said. He says that the institute’s language “turns the name of our family on its head.”
In response, Joseph has worked with the European Jewish Association (EJA) to submit a formal letter of complaint to Pennsylvania officials. In April 2025, the pair sent a 32‑page legal brief and a 58‑page evidentiary appendix to the Pennsylvania Department of State’s Bureau of Corporations and Charitable Organizations, as well as to the office of Governor Josh Shapiro. The brief requests that the institute be investigated for potentially deceptive use of a deceased scholar’s name and for allegations that