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‘We have to be here fighting’: Deborah Lipstadt opens up on her Poland-Germany trip with Douglas Emhoff
BERLIN (JTA) — Second gentleman Douglas Emhoff made headlines late last month during a trip to Europe, where he met with other foreign leaders working to combat antisemitism and returned to his ancestors’ town in Poland.
But the trip was originally Deborah Lipstadt’s mission.
The historian, an authority on Holocaust issues and now the U.S. special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism, had planned to go to Krakow and Berlin on behalf of the Biden-Harris administration. The trip included a visit to the memorial and museum at Auschwitz-Birkenau on the 78th anniversary of the death camp’s liberation by Soviet troops and, in Berlin, a meeting with special envoys and coordinators who, like Lipstadt, are charged with the task of countering hatred against Jews.
The itinerary fit perfectly with Emhoff’s own anti-antisemitism campaign, so he asked Lipstadt late last year if he could come along.
As she reflected in an interview with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency after returning home, Emhoff was not the only one to get emotional on the trip.
This interview has been lightly condensed and edited for clarity.
JTA: You met with special envoys on antisemitism from other countries, as you and Emhoff continue to work on a national plan to fight antisemitism at home. Did any concrete policy suggestions come out of those meetings?
DL: The meeting with the special envoys on antisemitism now is the third meeting we have had together.
But I think it was very important to send the message that we are all government appointees, and we speak government to government. So we have already gotten into that rhythm, and it was a very useful meeting. It was also a useful meeting because there were people there from the White House, from my staff, who are involved in this interagency process, and they got to hear from the people who are composing, writing, who have written national plans. And I think that was very helpful. So it was one of the most productive meetings.
You also attended an interfaith meeting with Jewish, Catholic, Protestant and Muslim participants, hosted by the Central Council of Jews in Germany in Berlin. What came out of that?
That actually went very well. The groups tended to talk about what they do together. …One of the things I urged the group, and it may have been bringing coals to Newcastle, but it is a sort of a new effort on their part… is that [talking about things that affect multiple faiths] is a good way of building relations. For instance, [my office had] a meeting in October, convened by the EU but with very strong support from the State Department, from my office, on ritual slaughter. Which of course affects both Jews and Muslims, kashrut and halal. So here is a tachles [goal], a brass tacks area which we could work on together. And that was an excellent meeting, a whole day at the EU.
What do you see as the main challenges in fighting antisemitism and hate today?
You know, some people say this is just like the 1930s. It is not. Back then, you had government-sponsored antisemitism. Whether it was Germany, whether it was other countries, even in the United States. We didn’t have government sponsored antisemitism, but there was a failure of the [U.S.] government [to respond].
On Monday morning, we were sitting in Topography of Terror [Berlin’s museum and archive on the history of the Gestapo], and it was government officials discussing “how do we fight antisemitism?” And everybody around that table is paid by the government. They are government officials, officially appointed. That’s a big difference. That is a humongous difference. That is a sea change.
And then we had the second gentleman there who could easily have said, “We came into office, we put a mezuzah up at our residence. We had a Chanukah party, a Rosh Hashanah party, we had a seder…” [Instead, it] is really clear that he has taken to this issue. He has really said it a number of times… and his wife [Vice President Kamala Harris] says, “He didn’t find this issue. This issue found him.”
RELATED: We’re visiting Auschwitz because the fight against antisemitism didn’t end with liberation
On the first day I met him, which was before I was sworn into office, he said he wanted to meet me and I spent some time with him. He said, “I want to work with you.” And then in October, we had a sukkah event at Blair House [the state guest house], where the State Department brought a sukkah, and we invited ambassadors and deputy chiefs of mission from Middle Eastern and Muslim-majority countries. So sitting around the table were the Israeli ambassador, the Turkish ambassador, the Pakistan ambassador, the deputy chief of mission from Qatar, the deputy chief of mission from Saudi Arabia… And [the Second Gentleman] and I were standing in the kitchen waiting to be escorted into the room, when people took their seats. And he said to me, “Deborah, where are you traveling, where are you going?” I said “Well, in January I am going to Auschwitz-Birkenau for the 27th.” And he said “I’m in.” And that’s how it happened.
You have been to Auschwitz many times…
Dozens of times, I can’t keep count. You know I have been many times, but I work very hard so that it never becomes de rigeur. That it becomes “min haminyan” as you would say in Hebrew. … All you have to do is remind yourself of what happened there. And so it doesn’t matter if it’s your first time or your 15th time. If you are cognizant of what happened there, it sits with you.
…When I go to Auschwitz, especially when it was around my trial [after being sued by British writer David Irving for calling him a Holocaust denier], I had to look at things in a very forensic way, you know: How do we prove this, how do we show that. And that of course sits with me still. But I was well aware that this was [Emhoff’s] first time and what an emotional impact this was having on him. … The thing that always strikes me about Auschwitz, the thing that you hear resounding in your ears in a thunderous way, is the silence. The absence. The little kid that would have worn the shoes that you saw in the display. The people who wore the eyeglasses. The men who shaved with that shaving stuff.
So that is always there. And it hits me at moments and then I become the historian. Analyzing. But it was very powerful, and what was also powerful was, in a way, though this seems counterintuitive, going to Poland first, which was just laden with emotion, especially for him, he went to the town where his family comes from, and got a lot of information. And then going to Germany. One would have thought, go to Germany first and then go to Poland, but in a way the emotional part became the backdrop for the business meetings in Germany.
[Emhoff] very kindly at one point described me as his mentor. Well, if I am his mentor, he is an A1 student. He is really intent on showing not just his passion about the issue but in learning about the issue. He is an accomplished lawyer, an experienced lawyer, and he knows that feeling is not enough, you’ve got to have information, and he gathered that every place he went.
Do you really have the feeling that antisemitism is on the rise or is it just more acceptable to express it?
I think both. I am not out there crunching the numbers statistically, but certainly it is more acceptable. Certainly, it is increasingly normalized. Whether it’s among comedians, whether it is articles in the newspaper, whether it is at demonstrations, it is increasingly normal. And even becomes fodder for entertainers. So whether those same people felt the same before and didn’t say anything or they now suddenly feel that, I don’t know. But many people who might otherwise have been more reticent about expressing certain things previously seem to feel freer to say antisemitic things now.
If antisemitism keeps coming back, what gives you hope?
First of all, what gives me hope, what gives me strength, is I know what I am fighting for, I am not just fighting against. I have a very strong sense of my Jewish identity, I have a very strong sense of who I am, Jewishly. I am lucky, I had a great education, etc.
Earlier this year, I guess it was September, the president did a phone call, it was his practice during the vice presidency, before Rosh Hashanah, or between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, to do a phone call with — this time I think it was 1,200 rabbis. And I came along after he spoke with them to answer questions. And one of the questions was what gives me joy and what gives me strength. And what I said to the rabbis was that I never want to become a “because of antisemitism Jew.” Driving me out of the woodwork because everyone dislikes me, hates me, or wants to harm me. Not everyone — but there are people who want to harm me.
On Monday when I was at all those meetings [in Berlin], it was Jan. 30, 90 years after Hitler came to power, right there where we were standing. Not far from there people were marching in the streets with tiki torches! Championing among other things “death to the Jews.”
And here we were, back: Yes, the good news is here we are back, openly talking about fighting [antisemitism], here we are back, government officials tasked with fighting it, someone at the ambassadorial level from my country, the second gentleman, anxious to help in this effort, but nonetheless we were back there fighting. So on one hand, you can say, “Great, we have the special envoy, great we have the second gentleman who was so open to taking this on. This is unbelievable.” But we are here fighting. We have to be here fighting.
What was your most memorable experience from the recent trip?
On Saturday night [in Poland], one of the members of the White House staff that was with us after Shabbos had hired a car to go to the little village, shtetl, whatever, that her family came from. She wanted to go to the cemetery to see if she could find any names. Now the chances of her finding the names, in the daylight, when it is 70 degrees out and comfortable [would be hard enough]. Here it was below freezing, snow was falling, the ground was icy, and it was pitch black. We were with a genealogist, but the cemetery was locked. So we thought we would have to climb the fences. I thought, “Oh my God, we are going to have an international incident!” But our driver got the key to the cemetery from the people across the street, and I asked, “How did you know?” And he said, “The people across the street always have the key.”
So we didn’t have to break in. She wanted to say a prayer, and she was totally capable of saying the prayer herself but obviously she was deeply moved, and she asked me to recite the “El Maleh Rachamim” [prayer for the soul of a person who has died] for her. And when I stopped, she gave all the names of the people, many of whom were buried there but we couldn’t find the exact places. And then I said “shenikberu” [“who is buried here”], and the person holding the flashlight for me, I couldn’t see, it was tiny print, and he’s Israeli, he said, “po.” Here, here, here! I had never said an “El Maleh Rachamim” for people who were caught up in this tragedy, here. In situ. It was very powerful.
And then on the 30th [in Berlin] after our special envoy meeting, we all walked over to the [city’s] Holocaust memorial. And Felix [Klein, Germany’s special commissioner on antisemitism and Jewish life] had brought stones. And we were standing there, and to borrow a phrase from Herman Wouk’s “The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial,” there was this pregnant pause. And I said, “Would you like me to recite a prayer?” And I recited the prayer, another “El Maleh Rachamim,” and I became totally verklempt [overcome with emotion]. Because I was just a 12-minute walk, if that long, from where it was planned and carried out, and that was very powerful as well.
So the trip was pregnant with meaning, but I think more than just meaning, hopefully also impact.
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The post ‘We have to be here fighting’: Deborah Lipstadt opens up on her Poland-Germany trip with Douglas Emhoff appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Civil Rights Group Blasts ‘Drop Hillel’ Campaign as Attack on Jewish Identity
Anti-Israel protesters in New York City in April 2024. Photo: REUTERS/David Dee Delgado
A California-based civil rights advocacy group on Tuesday condemned a campaign to ban chapters of Hillel International from college campuses as a “transparent” assault on Jewish identity which aims to force the community and support for Israel underground.
StandWithUs, a nonprofit currently litigating a slew of antisemitism cases across the US, issued the comments in response to the “Drop Hillel” initiative being spearheaded by Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and a network of other anti-Zionists groups, some of which claim to be Jewish. The cause is being amplified by a robust social media effort, and at least one undergraduate student government attempted earlier this month to pass legislation based on it only to be vetoed by the administration.
“The campaign makes false and misleading accusations about Israel, then frames Jewish students and institutions as guilty by association simply because they refuse to erase Israel from Jewish life,” said StandWithUs, which is currently representing dozens of victims of antisemitism in legal cases across the US. “This campaign echoes a long history of Jewish communities facing pressure to abandon core aspects of their identity to gain acceptance and/or safety.”
Drop Hillel — a component of the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel — increased its presence on college campuses after Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel triggered an explosion of extremist student activism. Students for Justice in Palestine says it targets the organization, which is the largest for Jewish college students in the country, for having “monopolized … Jewish campus life into a pipeline for pro-Israel indoctrination, genocide-apologia, and material support to the Zionist project and its crimes.”
Said the group in October 2024, “Across the country, Hillel chapters have invited Israeli soldiers to their campuses; promoted propaganda trips such as birthright; and organized charity drives for the Israeli military … Such actions reveal Hillel’s ideological and material investment in Zionism.”
The campaign, while not successful so far, has been operating within a campus ecosystem in which animus toward Israel and anti-Jewish discrimination are widespread and often go hand in hand.
In the 2024-2025 academic year, Drop Hillel almost caught on at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In that case, SJP planted the seed of the idea during a “no more Hillel” during a rally which, among other things, demanded removing Israel from UNC’s study abroad program and adopting the BDS movement. Addressing the comments to the school’s student newspaper days later, SJP, which has been linked to Islamist terrorist organizations, proclaimed that abolishing Hillel is a coveted goal of the anti-Zionist movement.
“Zionism is a racist supremacist ideology advocating for the creation and sustenance of an ethnostate through the expulsion and annihilation of native people,” the group told The Daily Tar Hell. “Therefore, any group that advocates for a supremacist ideology — be it the KKK, the Proud Boys, Hillel, or Heels for Israel — should not be welcome on campus.”
SJP recently targeted The New School in New York City for the campaign, an effort which yielded a successful student Senate vote to defund Hillel and revoke its university recognition on May 1. The measure conditioned restoration of the chapter’s status on its severing ties with Hillel International and shuttering a program which awards trips to Israel. While the New School’s administration blocked the measure, it declined to reject the ideology which motivated it.
“By distorting a qualified student organization and characterizing it as something it is not, the [student government] is using its platform to target fellow students in a misguided attempt to hold those students responsible for the acts of government,” the university said in a statement which also said the student Senate “does not have the authority to determine the recognition, funding eligibility, or official status of registered student organizations.”
Punching back, the student Senate vowed to continue its participation in Drop Hillel, saying that it “will continue to sanction Hillel” for its “direct material collaboration with a foreign military.” Meanwhile, in its own response, Hillel said, “We are not going anywhere.”
This week, StandWithUs implored Jewish students, faculty, and staff to continue fighting Drop Hillel wherever it appears.
“No one can ever sever the Jewish connection to Israel,” the group said. “As with all challenges like this, the Jewish people and our institutions will continue with solidarity and strength, and we will not only survive, but we will continue to thrive.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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Britain to Legislate to Tackle Threats From Hostile State Proxies After Wave of Antisemitic Attacks
Orthodox Jews stand by a police cordon, after a man was arrested following a stabbing incident in the Golders Green area, which is home to a large Jewish population, in London, Britain, April 29, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Hannah McKay
Britain will legislate to strengthen its ability to deal with proxies for malign state actors, taking powers to make it possible to ban them in light of increased activity in Britain and a rise in antisemitic attacks.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer has said the government has to “deal with malign state actors” in the wake of a series of attacks on Britain‘s Jewish community.
In a speech outlining the government’s agenda, King Charles said it would “introduce legislation to tackle the growing threat from foreign state entities and their proxies,” and would also take urgent action to tackle antisemitism.
POSSIBLE BAN ON THE IRGC?
Several British lawmakers have called for the proscription of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
The IRGC is an elite military force whose purpose is to protect Shi’ite Muslim clerical rule in Iran. It controls large parts of Iran’s economy.
While Starmer has not publicly named the IRGC as being the target of the legislation, in an introduction to the King’s Speech, he said that Britain would tackle extremism “including where it is sponsored by foreign powers that are hostile to the UK, such as Iran.”
The move comes after a spate of arson attacks on sites in London linked to the Jewish community and the targeting of Iranian dissidents, with police saying they were examining possible Iran links.
Britain‘s security chiefs have for years warned about threats from “hostile“ states such as Iran, Russia, and China, with a number of convictions of people who had been accused of carrying out spying or other offences on their behalf.
The new law would allow the government to specify state-backed organizations that threaten national security through espionage, sabotage, interference, or other means. A review last year found that Britain‘s existing framework had a legal difficulty in proscribing state entities.
There will be new offenses created for belonging to such organizations or raising support for them, and the government said that collectively the measures would create a “tougher operating environment for foreign intelligence services and their proxies.”
The king’s speech also promised a new National Security Bill which would address those who were fixated on violence and planning mass killings, but were not obviously inspired by a particular ideology.
The new law would aim to criminalize the creation and sharing of the most harmful online material.
As part of an approach to align countering state threats with addressing terrorism risks, the bill would add “polygraph testing as an available license condition for state threat offenders,” the government said.
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‘Shame on Hollywood’: Cannes Jury Member Defends Actors ‘Backlisted’ for Anti-Israel Activism Over Gaza War
Workers set up a giant canvas of the official poster featuring actors Geena Davis and Susan Sarandon from Ridley Scott’s road movie “Thelma & Louise” on the facade of the Festival palace before the start of the 79th Cannes Film Festival in Cannes, France, May 10, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/ Marko Djurica
A jury member of the 79th Cannes Film Festival on Tuesday condemned the Hollywood film industry for “blacklisting” actors who have spoken out against Israel’s military actions in the Gaza Strip during the country’s war against Hamas terrorists controlling the enclave.
At the festival’s jury press conference, Cannes award-winning Scottish screenwriter Paul Laverty mentioned Susan Sarandon, Javier Bardem, and Mark Ruffalo, all three of whom have been outspoken in criticizing Israel’s military campaign against Hamas in Gaza. Sarandon’s character in “Thelma & Louise” is on the official 2026 Cannes poster.
“The Cannes Film Festival [and] the wonderful poster they have,” Laverty said at the end of the press conference on Tuesday, held before the opening of the film festival in France. “Absolutely iconic. Brilliant. And isn’t it fascinating to see some of them like Susan Sarandon, Javier Bardem, Mark Ruffalo blacklisted because of their views in opposing the murder of women and children in Gaza? Shame on Hollywood people who do that. My respect and total solidarity to them. They’re the best of us, and good luck to them.”
“I just hope we don’t get bombed now, because we’ve got this poster in Cannes,” the BAFTA winner added in conclusion.
Sarandon was dropped by her talent agency for castigating Israel while participating in a pro-Palestinian demonstration in New York City in November 2023. At the protest, the Oscar winner accused Israel of war crimes, encouraged others to have the “courage to speak out” in support of Palestinians, and compared the Hamas-led Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel just weeks earlier to hardships Palestinians endure in Gaza.
She talked about the fallout with her agency during an interview in 2024, saying: “I was dropped by my agency, my projects were pulled. I’ve been used as an example of what not to do if you want to continue to work.” Earlier this year, Sarandon further spoke about being shunned in Hollywood for her views about the Israel-Hamas war.
“I was fired by my agency, specifically for marching and speaking out about Gaza, for asking for a ceasefire. And it became impossible for me to even be on television,” she said at a press conference in February before receiving a career achievement honor at the 40th Goya Awards in Spain. “I don’t know lately if it’s changed, but I couldn’t do any major film, anything connected with Hollywood. I found agents ultimately in England and in Italy, and I work there … I know this Italian director that just hired me — he was told not to hire me, so that’s still recently. He didn’t listen, but they had that conversation. Right now, I kind of specialize in tiny films with directors who have never directed, in independent films.”
At the Cannes jury press conference on Tuesday, Laverty further talked about Gaza in remarks about this year’s film festival.
“You see so much violence, genocide in Gaza and all these terrible things,” he said. “The idea of coming to a festival – which is a celebration of diversity, imagination, tenderness — when there’s such vulgar, vicious, systematic violence. The idea of attending to a festival where there’ll be contradiction and nuance and beauty and inspiration. It knocked me out, to be honest.”
Before the start of the Cannes Film Festival last year, more than 350 members of the film industry — including Bardem, Sarandon, Ruffalo, and Richard Gere — signed an open letter condemning the festival’s “silence” over Israel’s military campaign in Gaza targeting Hamas terrorists.
Emmy-winning actress Hannah Einbinder recently criticized Hollywood’s silence about the Israel-Hamas war during a guest appearance on an episode of Zeteo’s “Beyond Israelism” podcast that was released in full on Tuesday.
“It pisses me off,” said the “Hacks” actress. “Because I’m sitting here with [Algerian-Palestinian activist] Mahmoud [Khalil], who has so much to risk and who has risked so much who has sacrificed so much … And I look at these people who have absolutely every privilege imaginable to mankind and they cannot utter a single word. I guess it makes me naive, but I cannot understand it. I really can’t understand it. And I hear people say that they don’t know enough and I — I don’t, it’s like, OK, so what do you do all day?”
“People in Hollywood, unfortunately, need these issues to affect a white person for them to see it as relating to them,” she stated. “Like, they see Jimmy Kimmel getting taken off the air suddenly, they see Stephen Colbert’s show being canceled by CBS, which is owned by the Ellisons, and they go, ‘How could this possibly happen?’ And it’s like, we know how because we saw students and professors and journalists and authors and Palestinian folks be silenced and fired and expelled and imprisoned … it took it happening to these white men for people to be like, ‘Oh my God.’”
In her acceptance speech at the Emmys last year, Einbinder declared “Free Palestine.”