Family member of lawyer who coined 'genocide' seeks to strip name from group accusing Israel of atrocity

A family member of Raphael Lemkin, a Jewish lawyer who escaped Europe during World War II and coined the term "genocide," is in a fight to have his name removed from a Pennsylvania nonprofit organization that accuses Israel of the exact term he came up with.

The Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention and Human Security has "warned of genocide in Gaza since Oct.

13, 2023," less than a week after Hamas terror attacks killed about 1,200 and resulted in the capture of 251 hostages in 2023.

On Oct.

28, 2023, the institute issued a "statement of mourning for the Gazans and the world," saying 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." It also warned that "if the world allows these two powers to continue to act with this level of impunity, genocide will become the normative policy of both dictatorships and the world’s so-called democracies alike." PROMINENT HOLOCAUST MUSEUM CHALLENGES MAMDANI WITH OFFER IN RESPONSE TO CLAIMS ABOUT 'GENOCIDE' IN GAZA The man calling for the change is Joseph Lemkin — whose father was Raphael’s cousin — and the sole survivor after his family of six was killed during the Holocaust .

Joseph told Fox News Digital that growing up the son of a Holocaust survivor meant being followed by "a black cloud" that colored his entire life.

In one example, he explained that when the families at his Jewish day school placed ads during an annual banquet to celebrate their successes, his father wrote a yearly commemoration of the memories of his more than 40 family members who died during the Holocaust, including his parents and brother killed at Auschwitz and two brothers who died after joining underground resistance groups.

He said his father raised funds for the impoverished Raphael’s funeral when he died in 1959, and worked until weeks before his death to fundraise for the betterment of his fellow Jewish Americans.

Joseph’s experience as the child of a Holocaust survivor came to mind again when his teenage son showed him a social media post from the Lemkin Institute using the family name to accuse Israel of genocide.

"Seeing the impact and how my son came across it made me really more concerned about it," Lemkin said.

ANTI-ISRAEL NONPROFIT UNDER FEDERAL INVESTIGATION OVER FINANCIAL DEALINGS: REPORT In an effort to keep the family name from being "turned on its head," he said he has worked with the European Jewish Association (EJA) to submit a letter of complaint to the office of Democrat Pennsylvania Gov.

Josh Shapiro and to Pennsylvania’s Department of State’s Bureau of Corporations and Charitable Organizations.