SACRAMENTO — One of the highest-profile Jewish prosecutors in the country is accusing a Santa Clara County judge of issuing an antisemitic ruling in a case involving a 2024 pro-Palestinian protest at Stanford University.
In a May 11 speech in the state capital, Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman called it “unacceptable” that the judge removed Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeff Rosen, who is Jewish, from the prosecution.
Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Kelley Paul disqualified Rosen on May 7, ruling that he had compromised the prosecution by publicly labeling the incident antisemitic when the charges didn’t include a hate crime allegation.
In an interview with J. after his speech at the Jewish California legislative summit, Hochman described it more specifically.
“I think if you are discriminating based on the fact someone’s Jewish, there’s a word for that. It’s called antisemitism,” Hochman told J. “I think this judge, in trying to be fair and impartial, has actually ended up being antisemitic in her own ruling.”
During his speech to about 700 attendees, Hochman compared Paul’s decision with a hypothetical parallel involving a Black prosecutor.
“If it was a black DA calling out racism, there is no planet in the universe in which this judge would have said that out loud,” Hochman said. “But when it happens to a Jewish DA, all too often we are way too quiet.”
As district attorney for the most populous county in the country, Hochman is a political independent and one of the nation’s most prominent local prosecutors. During his 2024 election campaign, Hochman lambasted the incumbent for his response to violence that erupted at a pro-Palestinian protest outside a synagogue in L.A.
During the May 11 speech, Hochman briefly touched on his own Jewish heritage and how it shapes his work as a district attorney.
“When I introduce myself … I tell them about my Jewish heritage. I go back to what my parents taught me,” he said. “I explain to them that the Jewish word for charity actually … means justice. The more charitable and good works you do in this world, the more justice you are bringing.”
The Stanford case ended in a mistrial in February, and Rosen promptly announced plans for a retrial. The defense then filed a recusal motion, and Paul ruled in its favor earlier this month, recusing Rosen and his entire office.
As a result, the case is now in the hands of the California Attorney General’s Office, which will decide whether to retry the defendants — German Gonzalez, Maya Burke, Taylor McCann, Hunter Taylor-Black and Amy Zhai — or drop the charges.
Hochman critiqued Paul’s reasoning, noting that recusals of a prosecutor, let alone an entire office, are rare.
“The number of times a DA actually gets recused, especially for a personal bias, is extraordinarily low,” Hochman said. “In those situations, the attorney general will come in, having effectively said the DA’s office is in conflict.”
In the case of the Stanford trial, though, the AG’s office opposed the recusal motion.
In an April 27 court hearing about the motion, a representative for the AG’s office argued that the defense based its claim on Rosen’s stance on antisemitism “on speculation that an audience might interpret Rosen’s message if they piece together a collection of separate statements in totality.”
Rosen had featured the prosecution on a campaign fundraising page titled “DA Rosen Fighting Anti-Semitism,” alongside a donation button.
In the recusal motion, deputy public defender Avi Singh argued that Rosen’s public statements about the case and about antisemitism in general compromised his ability to fairly prosecute the defendants.
Hochman said Rosen is facing an unfair double standard.
“If he was a non-Jewish DA who happened to basically participate in a candlelight vigil for the victims of Oct. 7, or had spoken out against Oct. 7, or gone to Israel on a fact-finding mission, none of these arguments probably would have landed,” Hochman told J. “It was the additional fact that he was Jewish.”
Hochman also expressed skepticism over the defense’s timing in making the recusal motion. If Rosen’s beliefs were so improper, he said, the defense team should have sought recusal before the trial began.
Hochman’s stance echoed similar arguments that prosecuting attorneys and the AG’s office made during court hearings on the recusal motion.
The recusal motion referenced a March 2025 speech Rosen gave for the San Jose Hillel, about a month before his office filed charges against the protesters. A video of the speech is linked on the “Fighting Anti-Semitism” page on his campaign website.
In the speech, Rosen equated antisemitism and “anti-Americanism,” a phrase that Santa Clara County Deputy District Attorney Robert Baker likewise used to describe the conduct of the protesters during the trial’s closing arguments.
“You should be able to express your personal views as a person of the race, ethnicity or religion that’s being attacked,” Hochman told J., “without then having to be accused that you can’t be impartial in dealing with issues that might come in front of your actual county.”