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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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War with Iran puts the US-Israel alliance at grave risk
The Iran war is strategically sound yet politically unsupported — an unstable foundation for a gamble that could reshape the Middle East. That creates danger for Israel, which needs the support of an American public that is rapidly drifting away.
For decades, the country’s greatest strategic asset has not been its military technology or intelligence capabilities — spectacular as these are — but rather the political, diplomatic and military backing of the United States. That relationship has not been merely transactional. It was supposed to rest on shared values and deep public support across the American political spectrum.
If that support erodes or disappears, Israel’s strategic environment will fundamentally change. To be blunt: it will not be able to arm its military. This creates a paradox. A campaign that has so far demonstrated extraordinary value for the Jewish state also stands a risk of fundamentally weakening it.
An alliance at its strongest
The conflict has showcased the depth of the current U.S.–Israel alliance. To many observers, and critically to Israel’s enemies, the operation has underscored not only Israel’s capabilities but also the reality that it stands alongside the world’s most powerful state.
The strikes have projected deep into Iranian territory, revealed astonishing intelligence penetration, and destroyed or degraded key threats. Israel’s enemies across the region have already been weakened by previous rounds of fighting since Oct. 7, and the current operation has reinforced the impression that Israel can reach its adversaries wherever they operate.
Moreover, Iran’s regime has managed to isolate itself to the point where most Arab countries are in effect on the side of Israel and the U.S. That projection — of an unbreakable and strong alliance – may ultimately be the most important strategic element of this war.
But therein lies the rub.
The political foundations of American support for Israel are eroding, which means the very element that currently strengthens Israel’s deterrence — American participation — may also be the one most at risk.
A just war, unjustified
Americans do not understand why their country is at war.
A Reuters/Ipsos survey conducted at the start of the conflict found only 27% of Americans supported the U.S. action, while 43% opposed it. Other surveys show similar results, with roughly six in ten Americans against the military intervention.
In modern American history that is highly unusual. Most wars begin with a “rally around the flag” moment when public support surges. Even conflicts that later became controversial — from Afghanistan to Iraq — initially enjoyed majority backing.
This one did not — in part because the case for it has not been made clearly to the public.
That error is compounded by years of polarization in American politics; declining trust in institutions and leadership; and the record of President Donald Trump, who has spent years spreading conspiracy theories and demonstrating a remarkable indifference to factual truth. It is no exaggeration to say that many Americans do not believe a word he says – which is perhaps unprecedented.
When a president with that record launches a war, at least half the country assumes the worst. Even if the strategic logic is sound, the credibility deficit remains.
The tragedy is that the war is, in fact, eminently justifiable. The Islamic Republic has long since forfeited the moral legitimacy that normally shields states from outside force. It brutally suppresses its own population, jailing and killing protesters, policing women’s bodies, and crushing dissent with an apparatus of repression. Its foreign policy is not defensive but revolutionary. Through proxy militias it has destabilized Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen, as well as the Palestinian areas, in some cases for decades.
The regime has pursued nuclear weapons through a series of transparent machinations, deceptions and brinkmanship. Negotiations have repeatedly been used as delaying tactics while enrichment continued. Any deal that relieved sanctions would not simply reduce tensions; it would also inject new resources into a system dedicated both to repression at home and aggression abroad — one that is despised by the vast majority of its own people, as murderous dictatorships inevitably will be.
There is a doctrine in international law known as the Responsibility to Protect — the principle that when a state systematically brutalizes its own population, the international community may have the right, even the obligation, to act. By that standard, the Iranian regime has been skating on thin ice for years.
But with this clear rationale left uncommunicated, the politically dangerous perception has spread that the U.S. was reacting to Israel rather than acting on its own strategic judgment.
A perilous future
If Americans come to believe that Israel caused a costly war that they did not support in the first place, the backlash could be severe.
For centuries, one of the most persistent antisemitic tropes has been the accusation that Jews manipulate powerful states into fighting wars on their behalf. The suggestion that Israel can pull the U.S. into conflict feeds directly into that mythology. Once such perceptions take hold, they can be extremely difficult to reverse.
Even people who reject antisemitism outright can absorb a softer version of the same idea: that American interests are being subordinated to Israeli ones. In a political environment already marked by growing skepticism toward Israel, that perception risks deepening the erosion of support that has been underway for years.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio seemed to inadvertently feed such notions by suggesting in recent days that the U.S. had to attack Iran because Israel was going to do so “anyway,” and then America would have been a target. It was a short path from that to conspiracy theorists like Tucker Carlson blaming Chabad for the war.
A future Democratic president, facing a base that appears to have abandoned Israel, may feel far less obligation to defend it diplomatically or militarily. Even a Republican successor could prove unreliable if the party continues its drift toward isolationism.
That likelihood is compounded by studies showing that a large part of the U.S. Jewish community itself no longer backs Zionism. That process is driven by Israel’s own policies, including the West Bank occupation and the deadly brutality of the war in Gaza.
So the very war that is showcasing the best the U.S.-Israel alliance has to offer is also at risk of fundamentally damaging that partnership. Particularly if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — the rightful object of much American ire — manipulates the Iran campaign into an electoral victory this year, the alliance’s greatest success could also be its undoing.
The post War with Iran puts the US-Israel alliance at grave risk appeared first on The Forward.
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Report: Iran’s New Military Plan Is Regime Survival Through Regional Escalation
Members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) attend an IRGC ground forces military drill in the Aras area, East Azerbaijan province, Iran, Oct. 17, 2022. Photo: IRGC/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via REUTERS
i24 News – After last year’s devastating conflict with the United States and Israel, Iranian leaders have reportedly adopted a major strategic shift aimed at expanding the war across the Middle East to secure the regime’s survival, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Previously, Iran responded to foreign strikes with limited, targeted reprisals. The new doctrine abandons that approach, aiming instead to escalate the conflict regionally, particularly against Gulf Arab states and critical economic infrastructure. The goal is to disrupt the global economy and pressure Washington into shortening the war.
This decision followed the twelve-day war with Israel in June 2025, during which Israeli and US strikes eliminated senior Iranian military leaders, destroyed key air defense systems, and severely damaged nuclear facilities. In response, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei—before his elimination early in the current conflict—activated a strategy designed to maintain continuity even if top commanders were neutralized.
Central to this approach is the so-called “mosaic defense” doctrine: a decentralized military structure in which the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) operates through multiple regional command centers. Each center can conduct operations independently, allowing local commanders to continue fighting even if national leadership is incapacitated. This makes the military apparatus more resilient to targeted strikes.
Analysts cited by the Wall Street Journal suggest that Tehran’s calculation is to make the conflict costly enough for all parties to force the US and its allies into a diplomatic resolution.
However, the plan carries enormous risks. By escalating attacks on regional states and international economic interests, Iran could provoke a broader coalition against itself. Despite prior military losses, Iranian forces retain the capability to launch drone and missile strikes, maintaining their influence over the ongoing conflict.
For Iranian leaders, the immediate priority remains unchanged: the survival of the regime, even if it requires a major regional escalation.
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Katz Warns Lebanon to Disarm Hezbollah or ‘Pay a Heavy Price’
Israel’s Defense Minister Israel Katz and his Greek counterpart Nikos Dendias make statements to the press, at the Ministry of Defense in Athens Greece, Jan. 20, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Louisa Gouliamaki
i24 News – Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz on Saturday warned Lebanon’s leadership that it must act to disarm Hezbollah and enforce existing agreements, cautioning that failure to do so could lead to severe consequences for the Lebanese state.
Speaking after a high-level security assessment with senior military officials, Katz directed a message to Lebanese President Joseph Aoun, saying Beirut had committed to enforcing an agreement requiring Hezbollah’s disarmament but had failed to follow through.
“You pledged to uphold the agreement and disarm Hezbollah — and this is not happening,” Katz said. “Act and enforce it before we do even more.”
The meeting took place in Israel’s military command center and included Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir and other senior defense officials, as Israel continues operations on multiple fronts.
Katz emphasized that Israel would not tolerate attacks on its communities or soldiers from Lebanese territory.
“We will not allow harm to our communities or to our soldiers,” he said. “If the choice is between protecting our citizens and soldiers or protecting the State of Lebanon, we will choose our citizens and soldiers — and the Lebanese government and Lebanon will pay a very heavy price.”
The defense minister also referenced Hezbollah’s leadership, warning that the group’s current chief could lead Lebanon into further destruction.
“If Hassan Nasrallah destroyed Lebanon, then Naim Qassem will destroy it as well,” Katz said.
Katz stressed that Israel has no territorial ambitions in Lebanon but said it would not accept a return to the years in which Hezbollah launched repeated attacks on Israel from Lebanese territory.
“We have no territorial claims against Lebanon,” he said. “But we will not allow Lebanese territory to again become a platform for attacks against the State of Israel.”
He concluded with a warning to Lebanese authorities to take action against Hezbollah before Israel escalates its response.
“Do and act before we do even more,” Katz said.