As the Law and Antisemitism Conference gets under way at the Cardozo School of Law, the first ever textbook on this subject has created the foundation for all current and future work in the discipline.

With Antisemitism and the Law, Professor Robert Katz demonstrates the inherent genius of originality. No matter what future works, critiques or revisionist commentaries might come forth, Professor Katz will always be the “first-mover,” and his Antisemitism and the Law is now and forever the standard against which all future study of the subject area must measure up and expand on.

There are many books on antisemitism, and plenty on Jewish involvement in the civil rights movement. But until now, there has never been a textbook on what Katz defines as “Antisemitism and the Law,” which could additionally be considered “Jewish Civil Rights.”

It is a rigorous, broad, and accessible text with content and analysis of relevance to a wide range of audiences, indispensable for anyone interested in how the application of law to antisemitism has evolved over time and across countries, up through the present in the United States.

Though nominally a “law school textbook,” the book is highly interdisciplinary, and could easily find a solid home in courses on history, religious studies, sociology, political science,  psychology, or public policy, among others.

Exceeding 700 pages, Professor Katz’s work is too voluminous to cover comprehensively in this review. However, readers who feel the sheer length might make it a daunting read should take comfort in its clear and thoughtful organization, making it easy to find sections of interest that generally do not “require” reading of all prior or subsequent sections.

One could readily “jump to” or “skip to” any of the sections without concern that they “won’t make sense” without close reading of all prior sections or that reading a section without reading all following sections would be somehow “incomplete.” Quite the opposite is true – each chapter stands as a “mini course” on its own, making up a whole that is coherent and yet divisible, according to the reader’s preference.

The table of contents of “mini courses” is as follows:

Chapter 1: Jews as Non-White

Chapter 2: Jews as Off-White

Chapter 3: Jews as Ethnic

Chapter 4: Jews as Jewish

Chapter 5: Jews as Racist

Chapter 6: Jews as Diabolical

Chapter 7: Defamation

Chapter 8: Hate Speech

Chapter 9: Online Hate Speech

Chapter 10: Comparative Hate Speech

Chapter 11: Hate Crimes

Chapter 12: Campus Antisemitism

Chapter 13: Émile Zola: Antisemitism is Antithetical to Liberal Democracy

Chapter 14: Pope St. John XXIII: Antisemitism is Antithetical to Christianity

This review focuses on the most strictly legal aspects of the book, leaving the book’s equally rich historical, philosophical, and interdisciplinary dimensions for readers to discover themselves and/or for other reviewers to address.

The book is balanced thoughtfully. Katz discusses cases and history in which Jews are clearly victims, but the author also includes plenty of content in which Jewish conduct and principles are the subject of internal debate among Jews globally and/or subject to ethical challenge along multiple dimensions

For example, subsections of the “Jews as Jewish” chapter include The Definition of “Jews” Under the Law of Return, Jewish Status in Reform Judaism, and Zionism as  Jewish American Project.  In addition, the  “Jews as Racist” chapter includes: Are Jewish Clauses Racist? Are Halakhicallly-Based Admissions Policies Racist? Is Zionism Racist?

Foundational Legal Principle: Antisemitism is Racism

In Part I, Katz covers the most important Jewish civil rights case in the history of the United States, Shaare Tefila Congregation v. Cobb, a landmark 1987 decision, in which a unanimous Supreme Court, including philosophically polar opposite justices Thurgood Marshall and Antonin Scalia, ruled that antisemitism is racism for purposes of federal laws dating to the Reconstruction Era and codified at present in Title 42 Chapter 21 of the United States Code.

While the facts of Shaare Tefila are simple, the implications are broad, more so than ever today, with the continually increasing antisemitism since the horrific tragedy of the October 7, 2023 attacks on Israel.

The Shaare Tefila case arose from a 1982 incident in which vandals spray-painted antisemitic slogans, symbols and phrases on Shaare Tefila Congregation in Silver Spring, Maryland. The congregation sued the attackers under federal civil rights laws.  The defendants argued that Jews did not constitute a “race” and that, therefore, the cited statutes were inapplicable.

Justice Byron White, writing for a unanimous Supreme Court, explained that when the Reconstruction Era civil rights laws were enacted, Jews were viewed as a distinct race, so the intent of Congress was to include Jews as a protected class under these laws. White wrote:

…the question before us is not whether Jews are considered to be a separate race by today’s standards, but whether, at the time §1982 was adopted, Jews constituted a group of people that Congress intended to protect.

Accordingly, per the unanimous Supreme Court, the lawsuit could go forward.

In classic law professor form, Katz throughout Antisemitism and the Law poses many questions that he does not answer, leaving the reader to think and reflect.  For example, he asks, “Is Shaare Tefila the Magna Carta for American Jews?” This approach encourages readers to think critically and reflect on the material, providing incisive questions to spark discussion and debate. One could imagine students or other readers debating, for example, the relative implications of the Magna Carta and Shaare Tefila, the respective historical contexts, and the symbolism of the analogy the question implies.

For those interested in “deeper dives” on Shaare Tefila, Judging Jewish Identity in the United States, by Annalise Glauz-Todrank is an interdisciplinary, comprehensive, incisive study of the case, covering not only the legal principles, but the human elements of how the case came to be, how the plaintiffs chose to file a federal civil rights lawsuit, and the details of the settlement that ultimately came to resolve the case.

Kenneth Marcus also addresses the law and politics of the case in Jewish Identity and Civil Rights in America.

As Though Responding to Antisemitism and the Law, A Federal Court Cites Shaare Tefila in August 2025

Coming just after the completion of Antisemitism and the Law, in a case showing the immediate relevance of the book (and that Katz could plausibly include in a supplement or subsequent edition), a federal judge cited Shaare Tefila in granting a “stay-away” order against a woman who had allegedly yanked an Israeli flag that a Jewish woman was wearing around her neck, choking the victim.

The case is Sumrall v. Ali, and the court writes, “Neither side questions whether Sumrall is part of a racial minority within the meaning of the statute. See Shaare Tefila Congregation v. Cobb, 481 U.S. 615, 618 (1987) (holding that Jews are a racial minority protected by §1981)…”

Different Courts, Different facts, Different Argument, Different outcomes

In Frankel v. Regents of the University of California (2024), which Katz discusses well into his book, on pp. 595-596, United States District Judge Mark Scarsi writes:

In the year 2024, in the United States of America, in the State of California, in the City of Los Angeles, Jewish students were excluded from portions of the UCLA campus because they refused to denounce their faith. This fact is so unimaginable and so abhorrent to our constitutional guarantee of religious freedom that it bears repeating, Jewish students were excluded from portions of the UCLA campus because they refused to denounce their faith. UCLA does not dispute this. Instead, UCLA claims that it has no responsibility to protect the religious freedom of its Jewish students because the exclusion was engineered by third-party protesters. But under constitutional principles, UCLA may not allow services to some students when UCLA knows that other students are excluded on religious grounds, regardless of who engineered the exclusion…

Scarsi granted the plaintiff’s request for a preliminary injunction against UCLA, writing, in part:

Defendants… are prohibited from offering any ordinarily available programs, activities, or campus areas to students if Defendants know the ordinarily available programs, activities, or campus areas are not fully and equally accessible to Jewish students. Defendants are prohibited from knowingly allowing or facilitating the exclusion of Jewish students from ordinarily available portions of UCLA’s programs, activities, and campus areas, whether as a result of a de-escalation strategy or otherwise. On or before August 15, 2024, Defendants shall instruct Student Affairs Mitigator/Monitor (“SAM”) and any and all campus security teams (including without limitation UCPD and UCLA Security) that they are not to aid or participate in any obstruction of access for Jewish students to ordinarily available programs, activities, and campus areas. For purposes of this order, all references to the exclusion of Jewish students shall include exclusion of Jewish students based on religious beliefs concerning the Jewish state of Israel.

Defendants… are prohibited from offering any ordinarily available programs, activities, or campus areas to students if Defendants know the ordinarily available programs, activities, or campus areas are not fully and equally accessible to Jewish students.

Defendants are prohibited from knowingly allowing or facilitating the exclusion of Jewish students from ordinarily available portions of UCLA’s programs, activities, and campus areas, whether as a result of a de-escalation strategy or otherwise.

On or before August 15, 2024, Defendants shall instruct Student Affairs Mitigator/Monitor (“SAM”) and any and all campus security teams (including without limitation UCPD and UCLA Security) that they are not to aid or participate in any obstruction of access for Jewish students to ordinarily available programs, activities, and campus areas.

For purposes of this order, all references to the exclusion of Jewish students shall include exclusion of Jewish students based on religious beliefs concerning the Jewish state of Israel.

Is StandWithUs vs MIT in Tension with the Frankel Case?

In 1st Circuit decision that came out after the publication of Antisemitism and the Law, Judge William Kayatta writes:

…plaintiffs allege that MIT failed to take sufficient action to curtail a surge of anti-Israel and pro-Palestinian student protests, thereby allegedly subjecting MIT’s Jewish and Israeli students to antisemitic harassment. The district court dismissed the suit for failure to state a claim. For the reasons that follow, we affirm.

…Plaintiffs are entitled to their own interpretive lens equating anti-Zionism (as they define it) and antisemitism. But it is another matter altogether to insist that others must be bound by plaintiffs’ view. Plaintiffs’ equation finds no consensus support in dictionary definitions. Nor does a review of the academic literature point to any consensus that criticism of Zionism is antisemitic. And we do not find it dispositive that the United States Department of State has defined antisemitism as “[d]enying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor.”

In reviewing these claims, our role is not to approve or disapprove of the protestors’ strident advocacy, nor of the ideas they so vigorously expressed. We do not question the anguish plaintiffs felt at hearing a few of their peers justify the October 7 massacre or deny Israel the right to defend itself. But our Constitution bars the government from forcing a private university to prohibit students from voicing vehement support for, or opposition to, the policies and conduct of the United States and its allies. For these reasons, we decline plaintiffs’ invitation to hold that the protestors’ speech constituted antisemitic harassment actionable under Title VI merely because it was stridently pro-Palestinian and anti-Zionist.

Given the relevance and complexity of StandWithUS vs MIT, it appears likely to be a topic of discussion at the Law and Antisemitism Conference, and a plausible topic of a law review article and/or part of a supplement that Professor Katz might issue for his 1st edition of Antisemitism and the Law. And perhaps the United States Supreme Court will hear an appeal of the case.

Shaare Tefila Remains the Only United States Supreme Court Case Addressing Antisemitism Explicitly

To be clear, Sumrall v. Ali, Frankel v. Regents of the University of California (2024), and StandWithUs vs MIT are all decisions by courts below the United States Supreme Court.  Arising in different legal districts, these opinions are not binding on each other. The 1st Circuit decision is, being a US Court of Appeals decision, in principle, binding on lower courts (“trial courts” or “district courts”) in the 1st Circuit, which includes the Districts of Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Puerto Rico and Rhode Island.

However, outside of those jurisdictions, the 1st Circuit’s decision would not have binding authority.

It is plausible that at some point, particularly if there continue to be seemingly inconsistent opinions coming out of trial courts and the US Court of Appeals, that the United States Supreme Court will “grant cert” to review a case and issue an opinion that would be binding on all federal courts in the United States. When lower courts produce conflicting rulings, the Supreme Court may step in via issuing a “writ of certiorari” (“to be made more fully informed or more certain”).  This is the Supreme Court’s discretionary review process to issue a binding national ruling, resolving the differences among lower courts and providing coherence and consistency across all federal legal jurisdictions.

Conclusion for Readers This review has focused on the technical, legal content of Antisemitism and the Law, including some cases, statutes, and doctrinal tensions. But the book has far more scope than any reviewer could do justice to in a single pass.

Katz’s work ranges across history, theology, sociology, political philosophy, and literature, with coverage of The Law of Return, the status of children of marriages between a Jewish parent and a non-Jewish parent, the interpretation and evaluation of Zionism, implications of antisemitic speech combined with social media, activity on college campuses, the writing of Émile Zola, and the Christian beliefs of Pope John XXIII relating to antisemitism. These topics, individually and in aggregate, situate the legal story within the broadest possible human context.

At over 700 pages, Antisemitism and the Law is a life’s work and a field-defining one. Students or general readers serious about understanding how law has grappled with one of history’s most persistent hatreds must consider this book a cornerstone of their library; and professors whose coursework and syllabi relate to these issues would serve their students well to assign it as part of required reading. It is sure to stimulate deeply intellectual discussion, debate, and reflection.

For feedback, questions, comments, or requests for content in future pieces, please use the Contact Me tab above. Thank you for reading.  –MO

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