Pioneering new work from Indiana University, Indianapolis professor Robert Katz explores 3,000 years of discrimination and reform through legal systems around the world
New York, NY, September 19, 2025 – “The law has the power both to oppress and to liberate,” Professor Robert Katz writes in the introduction to his groundbreaking new casebook examining how legal systems have wielded power over Jews across millennia, for good and ill.
Antisemitism and the Law (Carolina Academic Press, 2025) analyzes how legal systems have wielded power over Jews, and how Jews and their allies have mobilized the law to combat antisemitism. The casebook offers the first comprehensive examination of antisemitism in this unique and burgeoning area of legal scholarship from one of the nation’s leading scholars on the subject. ADL (Anti-Defamation League), the world’s leading organization combating antisemitism, provided major funding for its publication.
Katz is Professor of Law and John S. Grimes Fellow at Indiana University McKinney School of Law and Affiliated Scholar at the Indiana University Institute for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism. He is the founder and director of The Center for the Study of Law and Antisemitism and a member of the American Bar Association’s Task Force to Combat Antisemitism.
“This groundbreaking casebook fills a long-overlooked gap in legal education at a time when studying and understanding the nearly three-thousand-year trajectory of antisemitism in the courts has never been more vital,” said Jonathan A. Greenblatt, ADL CEO and National Director. “We were pleased to provide major funding for this casebook, and we encourage its use in law schools and other educational institutions nationwide.”
Spanning three millennia of legal history, the casebook presents a robust understanding of the relationship between law and antisemitism, looking at travesties of justice: the Spanish Inquisition, the Dreyfus Affair, and the Leo Frank case, among others; and the development of legal doctrines, statutes, and strategies to help pave the way for more tolerant societies: the Nuremberg Trials, U.S. civil rights laws, hate crimes legislation, and many more.
Through a careful examination of judicial rulings, legal precedents, transcripts, and other records, Professor Katz explores the legal system’s paradoxical role as both enforcer of Jews’ subordination and instrument for attaining their full citizenship.
“Until recently, few perceived the need for courses on law and antisemitism and the pivotal role that a casebook could play in their adoption,” Katz writes. “My aim is to make the subject of antisemitism and the law widely known, accessible within the legal community and beyond it.”
The 725-page volume tackles its subject in five parts, with opening sections devoted first to “Anti-Discrimination Law” and “Jewish Identity,” followed by “Antisemitic Speech” and its regulation; “Anti-Jewish Activities” and civil rights protections; and, finally, “Allies Against Antisemitism.”
Selected chapters can augment courses on race and the law, the First Amendment, cyberlaw, trusts and estates, torts, criminal law, international human rights law, comparative law, education law, law and religion, and Catholic law. General readers may approach this work as a historical narrative developed through primary sources, annotations, and commentary.
Professors teaching in this field may request a complimentary copy of the casebook and a forthcoming teacher’s manual by completing an examination copy request form on the Carolina Academic Press website.
Additional funding and support for Antisemitism and the Law was provided by the Academic Engagement Network (AEN), the Herbert Simon Family Foundation, the Leon Levy Foundation and the Rieders Foundation.
ADL is the leading anti-hate organization in the world. Founded in 1913, its timeless mission is “to stop the defamation of the Jewish people and to secure justice and fair treatment to all.” Today, ADL continues to fight all forms of antisemitism and bias, using innovation and partnerships to drive impact. A global leader in combating antisemitism, countering extremism and battling bigotry wherever and whenever it happens, ADL works to protect democracy and ensure a just and inclusive society for all. More at www.adl.org.