Deborah E. Lipstadt, Dorot Professor of Modern Jewish History and Holocaust Studies and founding director of the Institute for Jewish Studies at Emory University, is to be nominated by President Biden as Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism, a position with the rank of ambassador.
Described by Religion News Service as “an American Jewish heroine,” Lipstadt was catapulted to global fame when British Holocaust denier David Irving sued her for libel in the United Kingdom in a case that lasted six years.
Irving lost his lawsuit, which is the subject of the 2016 biographical film Denial based on Lipstadt's account of the trial in her book Denial: Holocaust History on Trial.
“For deniers to be right who would have to be wrong?” Lipstadt asks in a 2017 Ted Talk, “Behind the Lies of Holocaust Denial.” “Well, first of all, the victims, the survivors who have told us their harrowing stories,” she said, but also “bystanders, the people who lived in the myriad of towns and villages and cities … who watched their neighbors be rounded up … and marched to the outskirts of towns and be left dead in ditches.”
An Orthodox Jew, Lipstadt joined Emory University Department of Religion in 1993. The same year, she authored the award-winning book, Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory, which the university describes as “the first full-length study of those who attempt to deny the Holocaust” who are part of a growing movement rooted in “anti-Semitic diatribe” and “pseudo-history.”
“You can’t fight every battle, but there are certain battles you cannot turn away from,” Lipstadt once said. “You can’t let hatred and prejudice go unchallenged.”
Lipstadt had to reside in Great Britain during the 12-week trial resulting from Irving’s lawsuit. Emory University supported her, reassuring her that “the courtroom will be your classroom.” Lipstadt chronicled her trial in a 2006 book, History on Trial: My Day in Court with a Holocaust Denier.
In Lipstadt’s most recent book, Antisemitism: Here and Now, published in 2019, she examines the revival of anti-Jewish sentiment across Europe and the United States—a scourge she refers to as “the longest hatred.”
Lipstadt has a distinguished history of working to highlight issues pertaining to the Jewish community. She was a historical consultant to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, where she helped design a section dedicated to the American response to the Holocaust.
Former President Bill Clinton appointed her to the United States Holocaust Memorial Council, where she served two terms. Members of Congress have consulted Lipstadt on political responses to Holocaust denial. And she has served as a member of the U.S. State Department Advisory Committee on Religious Freedom Abroad.
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