22 | FEBRUARY 2 • 2023 

OUR COMMUNITY

U

rging Jews to become more 
vocal and to use the law to fight 
back against extremist groups 
such as the Black Hebrew Israelites who 
are spreading hateful misinformation 
through film and social media that leads 
to violence, the Michigan chapter of the 
Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) 
invites the community to a talk by attor-
ney Martin Leaf. He will 
speak the event, “The Fight 
Against Antisemitism in 
Film: Amazon’s Hebrew to 
Negroes (H2N): Wake up 
America,” 7 p.m. Thursday, 
Feb. 9, at Adat Shalom 
Synagogue in Farmington 
Hills. The evening will feature clips of the 
film to prompt further discussion. 
Leaf, who represents the nonprofit HP 
Benson Association, filed a lawsuit on 
Jan. 13 in Ottawa County 20th Circuit 
Court in Grand Rapids against Amazon 
for continuing to air the film. 
The lawsuit states that “the film is the 
latest step in America’s war against the 
Jews, which is being waged by various 
factions all over America with criminal 
violence, threats and intimidation against 
Jews.” It alleges that Amazon’s sale and 
promotion of H2N is promoting crimi-
nal violence against Caucasian Jews in 
America. 
The lawsuit also alleges that Amazon’s 
promotional trailers of the film fail to 
inform the viewer that H2N contains pro-
paganda against Jews based on Hitler’s 
Jew-hating propaganda and that Amazon 
fails to reveal that a substantial part of 
the ideology of H2N is achieved sublimi-
nally and, therefore, illegally.
In December 2022, after a rash of 
complaints, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy 
released in a statement that the compa-

ny’s streaming platform will not remove 
the antisemitic movie, nor will it include 
a disclaimer on the site explaining the 
context of the film’s discriminatory view-
points. Instead, the company relies on 
customer reviews about the movie as a 
form of content moderation.
H2N had its world premiere in 2018 in 
Detroit. The film contains a variety of 
antisemitic tropes and conspiracy theo-
ries such as the claim that Jewish people 
control the media. It makes false claims 
that deny the Holocaust, claims “white” 
Jews are not “real” Jews, and states that 
Jewish people dominated the slave trade. 
After NBA player Kyrie Irving tweeted 
about it, the film has rocketed to popu-
larity among the millions of his followers. 
“This film is just the latest installment 
of many films that spread hateful propa-
ganda that aim to demonize Jews,” Leaf 
said. “These films are gaining followers, 
which leads to violent incidents against 
Jews, especially those in the Orthodox 
community. 

“The First Amendment protects free 
speech, including free expression in 
media such as films, even if they tout 
Nazi ideology,” Leaf added. “But this 
film falls under the exception because 
it can be linked to increased criminal 
behavior toward a minority such as Jews, 
and one can argue in this case that the 
distribution of this film and violence 
against Jews can be linked.” 
Leaf pointed to many incidents 
where Jews have been targeted by some 
members of the Black community, 
including countless attacks against 
religious Jews in Brooklyn. In June of 
2021, there were several incidences of 
Orthodox men assaulted by Black men 
as they walked home from Friday night 
services. In one account, the assailants 
called the Jews “fake Jews.” 
In another widely publicized incident 
from 2019, Black Hebrew Israelites 
murdered three Jews and injured three 
others in a Jersey City kosher market on 
Dec. 10, 2019. Investigations revealed 

Hear from attorney suing Amazon for distributing film 
that promotes violence against Jews.

The Fight Against 
Antisemitism in Film

STACY GITTLEMAN CONTRIBUTING WRITER

A scene from the H2N film where the narrator says, “the synagogue of Satan and Lucifer himself.”

A STILL FROM H2N FILM

Martin Leaf

