(Jewish Group) Awaiting confirmation, Lipstadt speaks up on antisemitism

[Behind the Aegis]

‘The numbers alone are staggering’: Awaiting confirmation, Lipstadt speaks up on antisemitism

Deborah E. Lipstadt, President Biden’s nominee as antisemitism envoy, told a crowd at Shabbat services in Manhattan that antisemitism is spiraling across the political spectrum and regions of the world, warning that “less than eight decades” after the Holocaust, “we’re facing these problems once again.”
“Jews may seem very well situated, but things can change on a dime,” she warned in a Friday night sermon at Temple Emanu-El in Manhattan that was streamed online to thousands of views. “And even if they don’t change on the dime, it’s not a good situation.”

Lipstadt, a renowned historian of the Holocaust and professor at Emory University in Atlanta, faced tough questioning at her confirmation hearing on Tuesday from Republican members of the Senate Foreign Relations committee, who had delayed the process for more than six months. As she ascended the bima, Lipstadt joked that “it’s a pleasure being anyplace but Washington right now,” saying: “It was an experience.”

But she said she would not talk about the confirmation, and instead delivered a professorial lecture about how antisemitism is both similar and distinct from other kinds of prejudice, and urged the audience to not let it define their identities.

Lipstadt cited an FBI agent’s initial response to last month’s hostage-taking at a Texas synagogue as “not related to the Jewish community” and Whoopi Goldberg’s recent statement that the Holocaust was not about race as examples of “a confusion amongst good people as to what antisemitism really is.” She said a similar phenomenon often plays out on college campuses, when Jewish students complaining of harassment are referred “to the religious life office,” arguing: “This is not about religion, this is about discrimination and hate.”

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