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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.
—
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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Don’t dismiss Israel’s most rage-baiting minister as fringe
As Israel drifts toward another election campaign, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir this week offered voters — and the world — a grotesque glimpse of where a large branch of Israeli politics is heading.
Touring a detention facility holding activists from a Gaza-bound flotilla intercepted by Israel, Ben-Gvir waved a large Israeli flag before rows of bound detainees forced to kneel, mocked them as cameras rolled, and declared Israel was “in charge here.”
The images sparked domestic and international outrage. European governments summoned Israeli ambassadors. U.S. Ambassador Mike Huckabee, a staunch supporter of the Israeli right, charged on X that “Ben-Gvir betrayed” the “dignity of his nation.” Even Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in a rare move, publicly rebuked his own minister.
That rebuke should not be taken as a signal that Ben-Gvir may fade in power. Because while many Israelis still prefer to think of the controversy-courting minister as a fringe embarrassment attached awkwardly to an otherwise respectable nationalist movement, he is the true face of the Israeli right today.
A week ago, Ben-Gvir ascended the Temple Mount in Jerusalem — one of his many violations of longstanding norms governing the holy site — as tens of thousands of ultranationalist Israelis marched through the Old City in an annual celebration of its 1967 capture, many chanting “Death to Arabs.” The rabble rouser — whose multiple convictions include support for terrorist groups — recently celebrated his 50th birthday with two cakes adorned with nooses, a nod to the death penalty legislation for terrorists that he played a major role in getting passed. No surprise: The law is worded in a way that makes clear it is aimed at Palestinians only. Legislators allied with his camp wore noose-shaped lapel pins while promoting it.
This madness is not some accidental byproduct of the right-wing movement Netanyahu has led for decades, but its natural consequence.
For years, the mainstream nationalist camp, with Netanyahu as its most prominent figure, has sold Israelis an illusion: Israel can permanently control the West Bank — and perhaps Gaza, once more, as well — while forever suppressing Palestinian national aspirations, and still somehow remain both democratic and fully accepted by the democratic world.
The terminology changes: “managing the conflict,” “security control,” “economic peace.” But the underlying proposition remains the same. And it is a fantasy.
A country that indefinitely controls millions of disenfranchised people — where almost half the population does not have the right to vote — does not remain a true democracy. A state ruling another nation forever does not remain democratic either, even if elections formally continue among the population allowed to vote.
There are now roughly 15 million people living between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. About half are Jews, and half are Arabs. That demographic reality sits at the center of every serious discussion about Israel’s future. Yet much of the Israeli right pretends this reality barely exists, and ignores the increasingly brazen Jewish terrorism and the illegal seizing of outposts in the West Bank. Netanyahu himself speaks the language of caution, realism and statecraft, striving to reassure centrists and foreign governments alike that Israel remains fundamentally part of the democratic West.
Not Ben-Gvir.
Ben-Gvir speaks for those on the right who see only two possibilities when it comes to Palestinians: permanent Israeli domination without equality, enforced by as much violence as needed — or expulsion. Officially, much of the far-right prefers the former; once the cameras stop rolling, almost all of them predict the latter.
I was speaking to one prominent right-winger the other day, and asked what they had in mind for the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. “Those who don’t want to destroy Israel can stay,” they said.
Obviously, that definition might include none of them, I noted. “Then get the trucks,” was the reply.
That wasn’t moral, I said. The reply: “Is it moral to force my children to fight forever?”
Ben-Gvir’s outrageous behavior is meant to appeal to people with this mindset. And it’s working. Polls show his Otzma Yehudit party expected to get perhaps 13 seats in the next Knesset — more than double their current six.
Moreover, Netanyahu’s Likud party itself has undergone a gradual shift to the right, with many of its Knesset members starting to sound little different from Ben-Gvir. That is why Ben-Gvir was able to ram through the disgraceful bill mandating the death penalty for terrorists.
This political calamity was not unexpected. The occupation of the West Bank, like unchecked power everywhere, was always bound to corrode political culture over time. The sleight of hand of non-annexation is growing old — in part because of Ben-Gvir’s influence, the number of settlements is expanding rapidly — and much of the Israeli right, consumed by hubris, wants to rip off the mask. Ben-Gvir is the most authentic expression of that transformation.
That is the dark reality hanging over the coming election, and the flotilla episode revealed the zeitgeist in its purest form. Israel already had complete control over the activists. They posed no meaningful threat. The performance was about domination, a theatrical display for a domestic political audience increasingly drawn to the aesthetics of vengeance and submission.
Challenged on Israel Radio about the wisdom of such a stunt at a time when Israel is facing a crisis in global public opinion, Yitzhak Kroizer, a Knesset member from Ben-Gvir’s party, offered this: “We’re done bowing our heads and apologizing.” He said the flotilla members were terrorists themselves for wishing to harm Israel, and that there is “great public support for an uncompromising stand.”
He’s right on that last point. Israel faces genuine enemies and genuine trauma. Hamas massacred civilians on Oct. 7, 2023. Hezbollah and Iran openly seek confrontation. Israelis have every reason to fear for their security.
But those realities still leave unanswered a central strategic question: What kind of country emerges from such prolonged conflict?
Ben-Gvir has given us one unsettling answer.
In 1995, a teenage Ben-Gvir famously brandished the hood ornament ripped from Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin’s car and declared on Israeli television: “We got to his car, and we’ll get to him too.” Weeks later, assassin Yigal Amir did just that, and murdered Rabin.
Today, the target in Ben-Gvir’s sights isn’t Israel’s leader, but instead all of Israeli democracy.
The post Don’t dismiss Israel’s most rage-baiting minister as fringe appeared first on The Forward.
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Gaza and Israel go unmentioned in Democrats’ 2024 election autopsy report
(JTA) — Gaza and Israel go unmentioned in the Democrats’ 190-page autopsy of Kamala Harris’ 2024 presidential election loss that the Democratic National Committee released to CNN on Thursday.
Critics of the Biden administration’s support for Israel during the war in Gaza that began on Oct. 7, 2023, have alleged that the party was suppressing its internal findings about the election, which returned President Donald Trump to office, because it would show that Biden’s stance was deeply unpopular.
Axios reported in February that the top Democrats who worked on the report concluded that Harris “lost significant support because of the Biden administration’s approach to the war in Gaza.”
If that’s the case, it’s not reflected in the document that CNN published on Thursday morning. Portions of the document were not included, however, with notes saying that the executive summary and conclusion had not been shared by the authors.
The report points to 10 different “strategic implications” for Democrats, including that “anti-Trump sentiment has limits,” male voters “require direct engagement,” and that voter demographics are not enough to determine which candidate they’ll prefer.
CNN reported that the document was written by Democratic strategist Paul Rivera and annotated by the DNC. The DNC released the document following questions raised by CNN, the network reported.
DNC Chairman Ken Martin told CNN that the report was not yet ready to be publicly released, but concluded that withholding it would create a larger distraction than releasing an incomplete version. “I sincerely apologize,” he said.
“For full transparency, I am releasing the report as we received it, in its entirety, unedited and unabridged,” Martin said. “It does not meet my standards, and it won’t meet your standards, but I am doing this because people need to be able to trust the Democratic Party and trust our word.”
Halie Soifer, CEO of the Jewish Democratic Council of America, said she’d expected to see analysis related to Gaza and Israel in the report.
“As soon as it arrived in my inbox I immediately searched for the word ‘Gaza’ expecting there to be an entire section focused on this issue,” Soifer said in an interview. “So I was surprised that, in fact, there was nothing — on Gaza, Israel, Jewish voters, non-Jewish voters, it was just nothing.”
Though rumors had swirled about the role that Gaza played in the autopsy, Soifer said she heard from a DNC official that there was “never” a section focusing on the issue, “at least not in writing in this report.”
Meanwhile, the Institute for Middle East Understanding, a pro-Palestinian nonprofit, called on Martin to release “the information that the author of the autopsy told us clearly and unambiguously, which is that DNC officials’ review of their own data found Biden’s support to be a net-negative for Democrats in 2024.”
Rivera, the report’s author, met with the IMEU and told them that the war in Gaza hurt Democrats in the 2024 election, according to reporting by Axios.
Soifer said the JDCA was not contacted by Rivera, and did not meet with him.
The pro-Israel lobbying group Democratic Majority for Israel also said it had not met with Rivera. “Our current leadership has not met with the author and hasn’t been contacted,” communications chair Rachel Rosen told JTA.
While Soifer was surprised by the report’s omission of Gaza and Israel, DMFI took it as a sign that support for Israel does not have a detrimental effect on Democrats’ chances in elections.
“We need to learn the lessons of 2024 so we can be successful in 2026, 2028 and beyond,” said Brian Romick, DMFI’s president.
“What is clear — autopsy or not — is a majority of Americans, including Democrats, support the U.S.-Israel relationship, and that support was not the reason Vice President Harris lost the election,” he said.
A DMFI staffer pointed to polling from last fall showing that a majority of Democrats support the U.S.-Israel relationship.
And Soifer pointed to a poll published Friday by the Jewish Voters Resource Center, a nonpartisan firm, that found that more than two-thirds of Jewish voters plan to vote for Democrats this November — suggesting that Israel was not significantly moving votes in one of the demographics most likely to be invested in the issue.
“The poll also demonstrated that the top issue driving the Jewish vote in 2026 – just as it was in 2024 – is the future of democracy, followed by the cost of living. While 70% of Jewish voters have an emotional attachment to Israel, 55% opposed Israel’s conduct of the war in Gaza,” she said. “There is little evidence that the war in Gaza has impacted the Jewish American vote.”
A spokesperson for the Republican Jewish Coalition pointed to the episode as an example of infighting among Democrats.
“The Democrats are tearing themselves apart as they appease the ascendant far-left extremists in their party, from Maine to Pennsylvania,” wrote Sam Markstein, alluding to candidates Graham Platner and Chris Rabb.
“It’s bad policy and it’s bad politics. The GOP is the only party where it’s safe to be proudly Jewish and pro-Israel,” Markstein wrote. “Republicans are righteously taking on the tough fights and winning, while Democrats continue to whistle past the political graveyard.”
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Argentine official who investigated death of AMIA prosecutor charged with covering up evidence
(JTA) — The former prosecutor who led the investigation into a mysterious 2015 death that unnerved Argentina’s Jewish community has been charged with concealing evidence in the case.
Viviana Fein was indicted on May 12 on charges of “aggravated concealment” over her handling of the investigation into the death of Alberto Nisman, a special prosecutor appointed to investigate the 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish community center in Buenos Aires that killed 85 people.
On Jan. 18, 2015, Nisman was found dead in his Buenos Aires apartment with a bullet hole above his right ear, having been shot at point-blank range. His body was discovered hours before he was scheduled to present evidence before Argentinian lawmakers accusing then-President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner and other senior officials of allegedly covering up Iran’s role in the AMIA attack.
At the time, Fein declared Nisman’s death a suicide, but in May 2016 she slightly amended her view saying that he may have been forced to kill himself. Then, in 2017, forensic investigators issued a report stating that Nisman was assassinated. Jewish institutions have also maintained that he was murdered.
Under the Argentine Penal Code, a person charged with aggravated concealment must not have actively participated in the original crime but joined in the aftermath, and Judge Julián Ercolini ruled that Fein allegedly failed to properly preserve the crime scene at Nisman’s apartment.
According to court filings, dozens of people entered and exited the apartment without proper controls, potentially contaminating evidence and compromising the investigation.
The controversy surrounding the handling of the original crime scene has persisted for years. Judicial investigations and expert reports described the apartment as chaotic in the hours after Nisman’s death, with allegations that evidence may have been mishandled or destroyed.
Fein, who could face up to three years in prison if found guilty, has denied any wrongdoing. A week prior to her indictment, her attorney, Lucio Simonetti demanded the charges be dropped, stating that in the case of a cover up, “There must necessarily be a connection between the perpetrator of the underlying crime and the person covering it up, since it is absurd to assume that someone would cover up for a complete stranger.”
He added that the ruling “says nothing about any prior relationship existing between my client and the individuals who allegedly took part in the supposed murder of Natalio Alberto Nisman.’”
The prosecution comes as Argentina’s government takes a newly aggressive stance against Iran and Hezbollah, which are widely understood to have planned the bombing. Since Javier Milei, a conservative supporter of Israel, was elected in 2023, the country has officially declared Iran and Hezbollah responsible for the AMIA attack and another attack two years earlier on the Israeli embassy; designated Iran’s Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization; and decided to pursue a trial in absentia for suspects implicated in the case.
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