Deborah Lipstadt

Deborah Lipstadt
Official portrait, 2022
United States Special Envoy for Monitoring and Combating Anti-Semitism
In office
May 3, 2022 – January 20, 2025
PresidentJoe Biden
Preceded byElan Carr
Personal details
Born
Deborah Esther Lipstadt

(1947-03-18) March 18, 1947 (age 79)
New York, New York, U.S.
EducationCity College of New York (BA)
Brandeis University (MA, PhD)

Deborah Esther Lipstadt (born March 18, 1947) is an American historian and politician. Lipstadt served as the United States Special Envoy for Monitoring and Combating Anti-Semitism from 2022 until 2025 during the Joe Biden administration.

Overview

Deborah Lipstadt is best known as author of the books Denying the Holocaust (1993), History on Trial: My Day in Court with a Holocaust Denier (2005), The Eichmann Trial (2011), and Antisemitism: Here and Now (2019). She was a professor at Emory University.

Career

Clinton government

Lipstadt worked for the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM). In 1994, President of the United States Bill Clinton nominated her to the United States Holocaust Memorial Council (USHMC).

Biden government

In July 2021, President Joe Biden nominated her to be the United States Special Envoy for Monitoring and Combating anti-Semitism. She was confirmed by voice-vote on March 30, 2022 and sworn in on May 3, 2022.

Views

Lipstadt has criticized the German historian Ernst Nolte for practicing "soft-core Holocaust denial", saying that Nolte promotes a more dangerous form of denialism than Holocaust deniers:

Historians such as the German Ernst Nolte are, in some ways, even more, dangerous than the deniers. Nolte is an anti-Semite of the first order, who attempts to rehabilitate Hitler by saying that he was no worse than Stalin; but he is careful not to deny the Holocaust. Holocaust-deniers make Nolte's life more comfortable. They have, with their radical argumentation, pulled the center a little more to their side. Consequently, a less radical extremist, such as Nolte, finds himself closer to the middle ground, which makes him more dangerous.

In October 2019, The New York Times published a letter by Lipstadt, prompted by Peter Handke getting awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, in which she wrote that the Nobel Committee awarded Handke a platform "he does not deserve [...] the public does not need him to have [...] false claims must have some legitimacy". In January 2025, Lipstadt said in Brussels:

“ We are at an inflection point. Antisemitism is becoming increasingly normalized [... antisemitic comments] are freely heard on streets of some of our leading Western democracies in many countries, including this country. ”

References

  1. ↑ Lipstadt at Jewish woman archive Retrieved 19 January 2019.
  2. ↑ "Deborah E. Lipstadt". Emory University. Archived from the original on 6 September 2015. Retrieved 2 September 2015.
  3. ↑ "Third Annual Bamberger Memorial Lecture with Deborah E. Lipstadt (November 22,2005)". Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion News & Publications. Archived from the original on September 4, 2006. Retrieved June 14, 2008.
  4. ↑ "Biden to nominate Holocaust historian Deborah Lipstadt as US antisemitism envoy". The Times of Israel. Retrieved July 30, 2021.
  5. ↑ "Emory historian Deborah Lipstadt nominated as U.S. envoy to combat and monitor antisemitism". news.emory.edu. Retrieved 2021-10-06.
  6. ↑ "Lipstadt approved as US antisemitism envoy, wrapping up 8-month confirmation process". The Times of Israel. Retrieved March 31, 2022.
  7. ↑ "Deborah Lipstadt". United States Department of State. Retrieved 2022-05-13.
  8. ↑ "Denial of the Holocaust and Immoral Equivalence". Archived 2007-08-16 at the Wayback Machine The Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs (August 1, 2003).
  9. ↑ Lipstadt, Deborah E. (October 18, 2019). "Opinion: Peter Handke, an Undeserving Nobel Laureate". The New York Times. Archived from the original on October 18, 2019. Retrieved May 20, 2020. Dissenting, Mr. Stephens contends that art and politics are separate realms. Decry the artist's politics but treasure his artistry. Mr. Stephens ignores the immense platform or megaphone the Nobel committee has awarded Mr. Handke. There will be those who will be convinced that his false claims must have some legitimacy, simply because he is a Nobel winner.
  10. ↑ "Online Press Briefing with Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism, Ambassador Deborah Lipstadt". United States Department of State. 2025-01-16. Retrieved 2025-03-02.