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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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FIFA COO Says World Cup ‘Too Big’ to Be Postponed by Israel-Iran War
Soccer Football – FIFA Club World Cup – Group D – Esperance de Tunis v Chelsea – Lincoln Financial Field, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, US – June 24, 2025, General view of the FIFA logo before the match. Photo: REUTERS/Lee Smith
FIFA Chief Operating Officer Heimo Schirgi said the 2026 World Cup is “too big” to postpone and will proceed as planned despite the ongoing conflict in the Middle East.
Schirgi made the comments while speaking on Monday outside construction of the International Broadcast Center, which is located inside the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center and will serve as a hub for international coverage of the World Cup. Schirgi was asked about Iran as it remains unclear if the country will participate in World Cup, after the US and Israel launched joint airstrikes against the Islamic Republic that led to the killing of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and several other high-ranking Iranian officials. Iran has retaliated with strikes against Israel and civilian areas across the Middle East.
“At some stage, we will have a resolution, and the World Cup will go on, obviously,” Schirgi replied, according to NBC 5 in Dallas. “The World Cup is too big, and we hope that everyone can participate that has qualified.”
FIFA Secretary General Mattias Grafstrom previously said the organization is closely monitoring the situation in the Middle East ahead of the World Cup in June. Schirgi added that FIFA has been in contact with Iran’s soccer federation, but did not provide details about what was discussed, according to Reuters.
The FIFA World Cup will take place across cities in the US, Mexico, and Canada from June 11 to July 19. Iran qualified for the tournament through its participation in the Asian Football Conference. It is set to compete in Group G at the World Cup and is scheduled to face New Zealand on June 15 and Belgium on June 21, both in Los Angeles, before going head-to-head against Egypt on June 26 in Seattle. Soccer fans from Iran are already barred from entering the United States for the World Cup as part of a travel ban that the Trump administration announced in June.
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Heaviest Day of Strikes Yet on Iran Despite Market Bets That War Will End Soon
Smoke rises following an explosion, amid the US-Israeli conflict with Iran, in Tehran, Iran, March 7, 2026. Picture taken with a mobile phone. Photo: Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
The United States and Israel pounded Iran on Tuesday with what the Pentagon and Iranians on the ground said were the most intense airstrikes of the war, despite global markets betting that President Donald Trump will seek to end the conflict soon.
Raising the stakes for the global economy, Iran‘s Revolutionary Guards said they would block oil shipments from the Gulf unless US and Israeli attacks cease.
“Today will be yet again, our most intense day of strikes inside Iran: the most fighters, the most bombers, the most strikes, intelligence more refined and better than ever,” US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told a Pentagon briefing.
Yet with Trump having described the war on Monday as “very complete, pretty much,” investors appeared convinced he would end it soon – before the disruption to global energy supplies worsened the global economy.
An historic surge in crude oil prices on Monday was mostly reversed within a day. Asian and European share prices staged a partial recovery from earlier precipitous falls, and Wall Street bounced to around its levels of late February, before the war.
A source familiar with Israel’s war plans told Reuters the Israeli military wanted to inflict as much damage as possible before the window for further strikes closes, under the assumption Trump could end the war at any time.
Israel’s foreign minister, Gideon Saar, said his country was not planning for an endless war and was consulting with Washington about when to stop it.
Iran has refused to bow to Trump’s demand that it let the United States choose its new leadership, naming hardliner Mojtaba Khamenei as supreme leader to replace his father, who was killed on the war‘s first day.
But occasionally contradictory remarks from Trump at a Monday press conference appeared to reassure markets he would stop his war before provoking an economic crisis like those that followed the Middle East oil shocks of the 1970s. He said the US had already inflicted serious damage and predicted the conflict would end before the four weeks he initially set out.
Trump has not defined what victory would look like, but on Monday did not repeat declarations that Iran must let him choose its leader.
Several congressional aides have said they expect the White House to soon request as much as $50 billion in additional funding for the war.
The US used $5.6 billion in munitions in the first two days of strikes against Iran, a source familiar with the information said on Tuesday.
“There is a big question mark over how long people can put up with the costs of this conflict,” said Clionadh Raleigh, CEO of US crisis-monitoring group Armed Conflict Location & Event Data, or ACLED.
Several senior Iranian officials voiced defiance on Tuesday.
“Certainly, we are not seeking a ceasefire; we believe the aggressor must be struck in the mouth so that they learn a lesson and never again think of attacking dear Iran,” Iran‘s parliament speaker, Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, posted on X.
Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi told PBS that Tehran was unlikely to resume negotiations with the US.
The war has effectively halted shipments through the Strait of Hormuz, where a fifth of global oil and liquefied natural gas normally passes along Iran‘s coast. Some of the world’s biggest producers have run out of storage and cut back output.
After Iran chose its hardline new leader, oil prices briefly surged to nearly $120 a barrel on Monday. But by 1500 GMT on Tuesday, Brent crude had settled back down below $90.
Trump said on Monday that if Iran blocks oil through the strait, “we will hit them so hard that it will not be possible for them or anybody else helping them to ever recover that section of the world,” he said.
But a spokesperson for the Revolutionary Guards said Tehran would not allow “one liter” of Middle Eastern oil to reach the US or its allies while US and Israeli attacks continue.
“We are the ones who will determine the end of the war,” the spokesperson said.
Iran is fighting back but is not tougher than the US military expected before the war, the top US general told reporters on Tuesday, at the same briefing where Hegseth promised the Pentagon’s most intense day of strikes in the 10-day-old conflict.
Asked if Iran was a stronger adversary than he expected when the US military drew up its war plans, General Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters the fight was not harder than expected.
“I think they’re fighting, and I respect that, but I don’t think they are more formidable than what we thought,” Caine told the Pentagon briefing.
Ending the war quickly would appear to preclude toppling Iran‘s leadership, which held large-scale rallies on Monday in support of the new supreme leader.
Many Iranians want change and some openly celebrated the death of the elder Khamenei, weeks after his security forces killed thousands of people to put down anti-government protests. But there has been little sign of protest during the war.
At least 1,270 people have been killed since the US and Israeli airstrikes began on Feb. 28, according to Iranian state media reports.
Scores have also been killed in Israeli attacks on Lebanon to root out the Iran-backed terrorist group Hezbollah, which has fired into Israel in solidarity with Iran. Iran said four of its diplomats were killed in a strike on a hotel in Lebanon on Sunday.
Iranian strikes on Israel have killed 12 people. Iran has struck US military bases and diplomatic missions in Arab Gulf states but also hit hotels, closed airports and damaged oil infrastructure.
Australia will deploy a military surveillance aircraft to the Middle East and send missiles to the United Arab Emirates but will not put troops on the ground in Iran, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said on Tuesday.
Australia‘s military support would help the Gulf countries defend themselves against unprovoked attacks from Iran, Albanese said, stressing Australia was “not a protagonist.”
“Our involvement is purely defensive,” Albanese told reporters. “And it’s in defense of Australians who are in the region as well as in defense of our friends in the United Arab Emirates.”
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New Poll Shows Complex, Nuanced Views Among Democratic Voters on Israel
Pro-Israel rally in Times Square, New York City, US, Oct. 8, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Jeenah Moon
A new survey analysis of Democratic voters suggests that despite increasingly vocal criticism of Israel in some activist circles, especially among the party’s youth, the broader Democratic electorate remains largely supportive of the US–Israel relationship.
The data, released by the Manhattan Institute, examines the ideological positioning of the Democratic Party and its views on a range of cultural and political issues, including attitudes toward Israel. Its findings suggest that while the party is experiencing a generational shift in how voters discuss the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the center of the Democratic electorate continues to support Israel’s security and the longstanding alliance between Washington and Jerusalem.
According to the findings, relatively small shares of Democratic voters occupy the most firmly pro-Israel or anti-Israel positions. Only 13 percent of respondents say Israel is fundamentally a “colonial apartheid state” that should be dismantled and bears responsibility for violence tied to the conflict since its founding. At the other end of the spectrum, just 16 percent describe Israel as a legitimate nation confronting serious security threats and view its actions as largely defensive, even if imperfect.
One of the report’s central conclusions is that the largest bloc of Democratic voters identifies as politically moderate. According to the analysis, moderates outnumber both progressive liberals and a smaller activist faction often associated with the party’s most ideological rhetoric. When asked about the direction of the Democratic Party, 38 percent of respondents said the party should move toward the political center, compared with 22 percent who said it should move further left and 26 percent who said it is already in the right place.
The results suggest that the median Democratic voter holds a more pragmatic political outlook than the tone of many internal party debates might indicate. The largest portion of Democratic voters falls somewhere between those two poles. Nearly half of respondents, 49 percent, say Israel has a right to exist but believe the Israeli government’s treatment of Palestinians, both historically and during the current war, deserves strong criticism. Another 23 percent say they are uncertain about how to characterize the conflict.
The analysis also highlights a sharp generational divide. Younger Democrats are substantially more likely than older voters to adopt strongly critical views of Israel. Among Democrats between the ages of 18 and 29, 26 percent say that Israel should be dismantled as a colonial apartheid state and that it “bears responsibility for any and all violence since its founding.” That is four times more than Democrats over the age of 65 and three times more than those between the ages of 50 and 64.
Meanwhile, only 9 percent of Democrats in the youngest cohort say Israel is a legitimate country confronting serious security threats and acting largely in self-defense.
These new findings carry implications for the party’s debate over Israel. The survey analysis suggests that most Democratic voters still view Israel as an important US ally and support its right to defend itself, even as many also express concerns about the humanitarian consequences of conflict in Gaza and the broader Israeli-Palestinian dispute. In other words, the report suggests that the typical Democratic voter has a position that combines support for Israel’s security with calls for diplomacy and humanitarian restraint.
Despite those internal disagreements, the analysis concludes that the most strident anti-Israel rhetoric in American political discourse originates from a relatively small but highly visible activist faction within the Democratic coalition. This group, which often plays a prominent role in campus activism and social media campaigns, is more likely to support measures such as boycotts or sanctions targeting Israel and to frame the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in stark ideological terms. According to the report, however, this faction represents a minority of Democratic voters and does not reflect the views of the party’s broader electorate.
Taken together, the findings point to a Democratic electorate that is more supportive of Israel than some political narratives suggest. While younger activists and progressive voices have become increasingly prominent in shaping the party’s internal debate, the survey analysis indicates that moderates, many of whom maintain traditional views of the US–Israel relationship, still make up the largest segment of Democratic voters.