Article: Antisemitism and the Law (Carolina Academic Press 2025)

Antisemitism and the Law maps how legal systems have both entrenched anti-Jewish subordination and served as tools for Jewish emancipation, and in doing so lays the groundwork for a new field of study at the intersection of law and antisemitism. Drawing on cases, statutes, inquisitorial records, administrative materials, and scholarly commentary from multiple jurisdictions, the book traces how law has classified Jews—as race, religion, ethnicity, or nationality—and how those shifting classifications have shaped access to rights and remedies. Part One analyzes the position of Jews within U.S. and U.K. anti-discrimination law, focusing on the extension of race-based protections to groups not traditionally conceived as distinct races. Part Two examines legal constructions of Jewish identity, from intra-Jewish disputes over “who is a Jew” to regimes such as the Spanish Inquisition, Nazi Germany, Israel’s Law of Return, and contemporary controversies over whether Jewish beliefs and practices can themselves be characterized as racist. Part Three surveys the regulation of antisemitic expression in the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, Canada, South Africa, and under international human rights law, including efforts to counter conspiracy theories and govern online hate speech. Part Four turns to antisemitic conduct, exploring hate crime laws in the United States and Germany, along with the application of Title VI and related federal civil-rights regimes to antisemitism on campus and to conduct that fuses classical antisemitism with anti-Zionist expression. Part Five highlights the role of non-Jewish allies, arguing that equal justice for Jews depends on broad recognition within legal and political communities that antisemitism is a serious wrong and that Jews are entitled to equal protection of the laws. Designed as a casebook for courses on antisemitism and the law and as a supplement for subjects such as race and the law, civil rights, First Amendment, cyberlaw, hate crimes, education law, comparative law, and law and religion, the volume equips students, practitioners, and scholars with conceptual, doctrinal, and historical tools to recognize, analyze, and combat antisemitism in contemporary legal systems.