Antisemitism and the Law - Robert Katz

Antisemitism and the Law Robert Katz ISBN 9781531028428

Antisemitism and the Law is a groundbreaking resource for understanding the legal history of antisemitism and the strategies used to combat it. The book examines how legal systems have both oppressed Jews and served as tools to fight antisemitism, providing a global and historical perspective on the intersection of law and antisemitism.

The text is organized into five parts:

• Part One explores Jews within anti-discrimination law in the U.S. and U.K., analyzing how courts have legally constructed Jews as non-white, white, or ethnic, and how race-based protections have been extended to Jews and other groups not traditionally considered distinct races.

• Part Two addresses Jewish identity, including legal definitions of “Jew” in Orthodox and Reform Judaism, Israel’s Law of Return, the Spanish Inquisition, and Nazi Germany. It also examines cases where Jewish practices, beliefs, and initiatives were deemed racist.

• Part Three analyzes the regulation of antisemitic speech in the U.S., Germany, the U.K., Canada, South Africa, and under international human rights law, including efforts to combat conspiracy theories and online hate speech.

• Part Four focuses on combating antisemitism through hate crime legislation in the U.S. and Germany, as well as federal restrictions on funding for universities that tolerate hostile environments for Jewish students.

• Part Five highlights the critical role of non-Jewish allies in opposing antisemitism, featuring J’Accuse and Émile Zola’s 1898 exposé of the Dreyfus Affair, as well as the Catholic Church’s evolving stance culminating in the Second Vatican Council’s 1965 exoneration of Jews from collective blame for Jesus’ death.

Antisemitism and the Law provides an essential framework for understanding antisemitism as a legal phenomenon and offers insights into addressing it through legal mechanisms, making it an invaluable resource for scholars, practitioners, and students of law and human rights.

Antisemitism and the Law Robert Katz ISBN 9781531028428, 978-1531028428 & 9781531028435

Author:
Robert Katz