Deborah Lipstadt appointed US antisemitism envoy

UNITED States President Joe Biden has picked renowned Holocaust historian Deborah Lipstadt to be his antisemitism envoy.

Lipstadt has been a long-time favourite to get the role and pressure has mounted on the Biden administration to fill the position amid a surge in antisemitic incidents in recent months. The pick was first reported by The Forward.

Lipstadt, 74, is the Dorot Professor of Modern Jewish History and Holocaust Studies at Emory University in Atlanta.

She is best known to the wider public from her appearance in a landmark British legal case in which she fought a libel suit brought by Holocaust denier David Irving. The events were portrayed in the Hollywood film Denial.

Lipstadt is also the author of several books, her most recent being Antisemitism: Here and Now.

The Biden administration has faced pressure to name someone to the post, with added urgency after a swastika was found last Monday etched into an elevator in the US State Department building, near the office of the special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism.

“Let me be clear: Anti-Semitism has no place in the State Department, in my Administration, or anywhere in the world,” Biden tweeted. 

“It’s up to all of us to give hate no safe harbour and stand up to bigotry wherever we find it.”

The administration is also promising to soon name a Jewish liaison to the community. The Trump administration took two years to fill the envoy post before naming Elan Carr.

Although the nomination has not been publicly confirmed, the move was already being hailed by politicians.

Florida Congressman Ted Deutch, the founding co-chair of the House Bipartisan Task Force for Combating Antisemitism, called her selection “an excellent choice.”

“She will bring to this role extensive experience and a deep understanding of historic and modern day antisemitism,” Deutch said in a statement. 

“Especially amid the years-long rise in global antisemitism, Deborah is the leader we need to push governments to take this deadly threat seriously.”

Lipstadt has been for years a go-to expert for the media and legislators on Holocaust issues, particularly on how the genocide’s meaning should be understood in the 21st century, and whether it had any cognates among anti-democratic forces in the current day.

Last year, during the election, she broke a longstanding taboo on comparing present-day American politicians to the Nazis and endorsed an ad by the Jewish Democratic Council of America likening the Trump administration to 1930s Germany. Lipstadt said Holocaust analogies were still off-limits, but she could see parallels to the rise of the Nazis.

“I would say in the attacks we’re seeing on the press, the courts, academic institutions, elected officials and even, and most chillingly, the electoral process, that this deserves comparison,” she said at the time. 

Lipstadt will be the first nominee who will need to be confirmed by the Senate since Congress first created the position in 2004. Congress last year elevated the role to ambassador-level, granting the position more funding and easier access to the Secretary of State and the President. 

The role involves tracking and reporting on antisemitism overseas, and lobbying governments to address anti-Jewish bigotry within their borders. It is not a domestic-focused role, although Carr, Trump’s appointee, sometimes criticised domestic actors, including liberal Jewish lobby group J Street. That attack drew a rare rebuke from one of his predecessors, Hannah Rosenthal.

TIMES OF ISRAEL, JTA