A relative of Raphael Lemkin, the Jewish lawyer who fled Europe during World War II and introduced the word “genocide” to the world, is seeking to remove the family name from a Pennsylvania nonprofit that has accused Israel of committing the very crime Lemkin helped define.
The Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention and Human Security says it has been warning about genocide in Gaza since Oct. 13, 2023—days after Hamas terrorists killed roughly 1,200 people and took 251 hostages during the attacks that year.
In an Oct. 28, 2023, “statement of mourning for the Gazans and the world,” the institute said 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.” The statement further warned that allowing the two countries to operate with “this level of impunity” could make genocide a standard policy for both dictatorships and what it called the world’s “so-called democracies.”
International lawyer Raphael Lemkin helped draft the Genocide Convention, which outlines how the crime of genocide should be prevented and punished. (Getty Images)
Joseph Lemkin, whose father was a cousin of Raphael Lemkin, is leading the effort to change the organization’s name. He is also the only surviving member of his immediate family after six relatives were killed in the Holocaust. Joseph told News Outlet that growing up with a Holocaust survivor as a father meant living beneath what he described as “a black cloud” that shaped his entire life.
He recalled that families at his Jewish day school typically placed advertisements in an annual banquet program celebrating their accomplishments. His father, however, used the space each year to memorialize more than 40 relatives murdered during the Holocaust, including his parents and a brother killed at Auschwitz, along with two brothers who died after entering underground resistance movements.
Joseph said his father also helped pay for Raphael Lemkin’s funeral after his death in 1959. Until just weeks before his own passing, his father continued raising money to support other Jewish Americans in need.
Those memories resurfaced when Joseph’s teenage son showed him a social media post from the Lemkin Institute that used the family name while accusing Israel of genocide.
“Seeing the impact and how my son came across it made me really more concerned about it,” Lemkin said.
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro speaks during a re-election campaign kickoff event in Philadelphia on Jan. 8, 2026. (Rachel Wisniewski/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Concerned that the Lemkin legacy was being “turned on its head,” Joseph said he partnered with the European Jewish Association to file a complaint with Democratic Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro’s office and the Pennsylvania Department of State’s Bureau of Corporations and Charitable Organizations. In June, he and his allies also contacted additional Pennsylvania officials about the matter.
After Shapiro’s office asked for more information, Lemkin and the EJA submitted a 32-page legal filing and statement of facts, accompanied by a 58-page appendix of evidence, in April 2025. Lemkin said he believes the complaint has prompted an investigation.
Geoff Morrow, a spokesperson for Pennsylvania’s Department of State, told News Outlet that “the Department [of State] cannot confirm or deny whether any organization has had a complaint filed against it or is under investigation.”
Shapiro’s office did not respond to News Outlet’s requests for comment.
People walk through Times Square as they participate in a pro-Palestinian rally on Oct. 4, 2025, in New York City. (Stephanie Keith/Getty Images)
In a news release dated Oct. 13, 2025, issued in response to an opinion article, the Lemkin Institute argued that Raphael Lemkin would likely have recognized what it called the “genocidal dynamics” of the current conflict because of his definition of genocide and his historical research. “We share Raphael Lemkin’s belief in the need for a Jewish national home,” the institute wrote, “but that has not meant that we are unable to see the genocide before our eyes.”
The release also disputed Joseph Lemkin’s authority to speak for the family. “Joseph Lemkin does not speak for the entire Lemkin family, nor does he officially represent a Lemkin estate,” it said. The institute claimed that other relatives contacted it after Oct. 7, 2023, including Peter Lemkin, who grew up in a home frequently visited by Raphael Lemkin. According to the institute, Peter has supported its work, shared information about Raphael’s research and encouraged its efforts, while also describing the family’s role in helping secure ratification of the Genocide Convention.
In a statement provided to News Outlet, the institute again challenged Joseph’s characterization of Raphael Lemkin’s views. “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,” the statement said.
Peter Lemkin did not respond to News Outlet’s requests for comment. Another relative whom the institute identified as supportive of its mission also did not respond.
The institute said it was established in 2016 or 2017 and adopted Raphael Lemkin’s name in 2021. Its founders, the statement said, were influenced by his life, research and moral convictions, including the work reflected in the 1948 Genocide Convention and the case studies he completed before his death at age 59. Because Lemkin died without heirs or a formal estate, the institute said, no official family representative existed from whom it could seek permission to use the name.
Anti-Israel activists protest outside the United Nations headquarters in New York, on April 7, 2025. (Selcuk Acar/Anadolu via Getty Images)
The statement also noted, “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.”
A participant wrapped in a flag of Israel stands at the main gate with the lettering “Arbeit macht frei” (Work sets you free) at the start of the annual March of The Living to commemorate the victims of the Holocaust during World War II, at the memorial site of the former Auschwitz-Birkenau Nazi death camp in Oswiecim, Poland, on April 14, 2026. (Wojtek Radwanski/AFP via Getty Images)
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 News Outlet, “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.”
The main entrance at the former Nazi death camp of Auschwitz, and, right, Raphael Lemkin, who helped draft the convention that maps out prevention and punishment for the crime of genocide. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber/Getty Images)
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, “We, the victims of the greatest genocide the world has ever seen, are being called perpetrators of genocide.”
The Lemkin Institute has published multiple reports on the Israel-Gaza war that allege genocide by Israel. On May 28, 2024, they wrote, “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.”
