A federal court has ruled that Dov Aloof, an Israeli-American professional Pokémon player, can proceed with a discrimination lawsuit alleging that the Japanese media company punished his pro-Israel advocacy while allowing another player’s anti-Israel expression.
Hernán Vera, a judge on the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, denied The Pokémon Company’s motion to dismiss the case on Oct. 8 and allowed all nine counts in Aloof’s lawsuit to proceed.
Aloof “stated a plausible claim of discrimination and retaliation,” the judge ruled.
“Pokémon has a code of conduct that forbids discrimination by race, religion and national origin,” Mark Goldfeder, CEO and director of NJAC, told JNS. “The court has now reminded it that Congress wrote one first.”
The Israeli-American player claimed that security removed him from the August 2025 championships in Anaheim, Calif., after he repeatedly requested a private meeting with management about tournaments in Israel.
The company maintains that Aloof violated event conduct rules. On Aug. 25, 2025, the company banned Aloof from official Pokémon competition. The judge found that the timing of the ban, issued soon after Aloof threatened civil rights litigation, supported an inference of retaliation.
“Antisemites have long dismissed Jewish attachment to Israel as mere politics. This court declined to go along,” stated Matthew Mainen, litigation counsel at the National Jewish Advocacy Center and Aloof’s lead attorney.
“When a company punishes a Jew for raising Israel while tolerating the other side of the argument, a judge can see what is happening to the Jew,” Mainen stated. “The identity behind the advocacy does not vanish because the subject is Israel.”
