Recently, Argentina removed federal judge Alfredo López from office after antisemitic content he disseminated on social media came to light.
Among his posts were statements asking, “To whom are the Jews who reside in our homeland loyal?” and describing himself as the target of “Jewry, both internal and external.” In another, he argued that those who “represent the interests of a foreign state” had no right to question an Argentine judge.
These were not the words of an anonymous provocateur operating on the fringes of the internet. They came from a federal judge, someone entrusted with interpreting the law and administering justice fairly.
At a moment when democracies around the world are struggling with rising antisemitism and other forms of hate, Argentina’s response offers an important lesson: Condemning hatred after it occurs is not enough. Institutions need the tools to recognize it, understand it and hold accountable those who use positions of authority to spread it.
López’s removal did not happen in a vacuum. It was possible in part because Argentina has spent years developing a stronger institutional framework for identifying and confronting antisemitism. A significant component of that effort has been the adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism by public and private institutions around the country. The principle behind this work is straightforward, spelling out the problem in clear terms.
Antisemitism does not always announce itself with a swastika or an explicit declaration of hatred. It can manifest through conspiracy theories about Jewish power, accusations of dual loyalty, collective blame and other tropes that have evolved over centuries. Institutions that commit themselves to combating antisemitism need a practical framework for recognizing these manifestations when they occur. That is where definitions and education matter.
This debate is hardly foreign to the United States. American universities, government agencies and other institutions are wrestling with many of the same questions: How should antisemitism be identified? When does hateful rhetoric become discriminatory conduct? And how can institutions protect people from discrimination while safeguarding legitimate expression?
These are difficult questions, particularly in a country with exceptionally strong free-speech protections. But difficulty is not an argument for institutional paralysis. The lesson from Argentina is that definitions need not replace judgment or due process. Used responsibly, they can give institutions a common framework for recognizing prejudice and determining when established rules and professional standards have been crossed.
The Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Latin American office has spent years working with institutions throughout the region to promote understanding of contemporary antisemitism and provide training on how to identify it. Since the IHRA definition was adopted in Argentina, it has been applied in dozens of cases. The López proceedings demonstrated what those efforts can mean in practice.
One of us, Ariel Gelblung, testified twice as an expert witness, first during the preliminary investigation and later before the Judicial Impeachment Court. His testimony addressed the meaning and implications of López’s statements, the antisemitic tropes they invoked, and the international standards used to identify hate speech and discrimination.
The result matters beyond one judge and beyond Argentina. Judges occupy a distinctive position in democratic societies. Citizens who enter a courtroom must be able to trust that their religion, ethnicity or identity will not determine how they are treated by the person sitting on the bench. When a judge publicly traffics in prejudices about a group of people, that trust is fundamentally compromised.
The lesson from Argentina is not that every hateful statement should be prohibited by law. Different democracies draw different legal boundaries around speech, and freedom of expression remains an essential democratic principle. But freedom of expression does not mean freedom from professional or institutional accountability, particularly for public officials entrusted with extraordinary authority over the rights and lives of others.
That distinction is especially important today. Democratic societies frequently respond to outbreaks of antisemitism, racism and other forms of hatred with statements of concern. Those statements have value, but they cannot substitute for infrastructure. Fighting discrimination requires clear standards, education, training and institutions willing to enforce the principles they have adopted.
Simon Wiesenthal understood that confronting hatred cannot be limited to documenting the past. The lessons of history matter most when they equip societies to recognize warning signs in the present and act before prejudice becomes normalized in their institutions. Argentina’s experience shows that democratic institutions are not powerless in the face of antisemitism.
Removing one judge will not defeat antisemitism. But this case demonstrates something increasingly important at a time when hatred can spread quickly and become dangerously normalized: Democratic institutions can draw a line. And when they do, it matters.
