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........

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