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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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After New York stabbing, Netanyahu says Mamdani is making Jews less safe
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani of “fomenting” hate and making Jews less safe through his fierce criticism of Israel. Netanyahu suggested the mayor’s rhetoric on the Gaza war contributed to the climate that led to Thursday’s stabbing of an Orthodox man outside a Manhattan synagogue.
“I don’t think it’s accidental that after he made this hate speech against Israel and against me, the next day a Jew is stabbed coming out of a synagogue,” Netanyahu said Sunday morning on Fox News.
Authorities said the suspect, Jose Morales, 51, allegedly yelled “Allahu Akbar” as he stabbed an Asian man in the back with a knife and an Orthodox man in the torso with a screwdriver before being subdued and arrested. Morales was arraigned Friday on several hate crime charges and was held without bail. Both victims were hospitalized and are expected to recover.
Investigators have not publicly linked the suspect’s motives to the mayor’s comments in a video address last week conceding he did not have the authority to arrest Netanyahu when he visits the city for the United Nations General Assembly in September, while also calling Netanyahu a war criminal and accusing him of orchestrating a genocide. Mamdani encouraged New Yorkers to protest instead.
The controversy has also been fueled by reports that members of Mamdani’s inner circle believed long before the legal review was completed that the city lacked the authority to arrest Netanyahu. Despite that, Mamdani proceeded with the review and used a mayoral address to announce the legal conclusion while renewing his criticism of the war in Gaza. Critics say the episode was a calculated political move aimed at energizing the pro-Palestinian and progressive base that helped elect him. The speech drew more than 200 million views across social media.
Speaking outside the Manhattan synagogue on Friday, Jewish leaders and some prominent rabbis expressed concern that the comments risked endangering Jewish New Yorkers, the largest concentration of Jews in the United States.
Netanyahu escalated his feud with Mamdani by directly linking the mayor’s embrace of the International Criminal Court’s case against him to the rise in antisemitism. “I speak to Jewish Americans in New York, and they’re afraid right now,” Netanyahu said. “I speak to quite a lot of my friends, and they say, ‘Look, it’s like a different world. We’re afraid to go into the streets. We certainly do not want to wear yarmulkes or any clothing that would give away that we’re Jews.’”
The Israeli leader further accused Mamdani of “basically supporting” Hamas, despite the mayor describing the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel as a “horrific war crime” that should be opposed “with every single fiber of our being.” Asked on Thursday whether he considers the Hamas massacre a genocide, Mamdani stopped short of using that term.
“The genocide charge belongs to our enemies,” Netanyahu said in the Sunday interview. “What we are doing is try to fight this genocidal terrorist organization that embeds itself among civilians.”
Netanyahu (6 minutes ⬇️) accuses Mamdani of fueling antisemitism by embracing ICC case:
“He’s fomenting hate… I speak to Jewish Americans in New York, and they’re afraid right now. And I don’t think it’s accidental that after he made this hate speech against Israel and against… pic.twitter.com/qjb5uj4xNM
— Jacob N. Kornbluh (@jacobkornbluh) July 26, 2026
The latest clash shows how the war in Gaza has become one of the biggest political issues of Mamdani’s administration. His outspoken criticism of Israel has won support from progressives but has also deepened tensions with many Jewish leaders, who say his rhetoric has made an already difficult climate even worse. In an interview on Thursday, Mamdani suggested that New Yorkers “have been aghast at this genocide over the last few years, and not only the continued denial of that genocide but also the fact that it continues itself.”
A recent Associated Press survey conducted before Mamdani’s recent comments found that Mamdani, who won just 26% of the Jewish vote in last year’s mayoral election, is viewed more favorably by American Jews than Netanyahu, who is facing a tough reelection in October.
Netanyahu is expected to visit Washington, D.C., on Monday for a meeting with President Donald Trump and attend the funeral of Sen. Lindsey Graham, a close political ally.
Despite acknowledging he cannot arrest Netanyahu, Mamdani has vowed to continue speaking out against the Israeli leader ahead of his expected appearance at the United Nations this fall. Netanyahu said Sunday that he still intends to travel to New York “to speak the truth” and defend Israel before the international body.
The post After New York stabbing, Netanyahu says Mamdani is making Jews less safe appeared first on The Forward.
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Israel’s shameful West Bank front
Two mosques burned in the West Bank on Sunday.
One, in the village of Qusra south of Nablus, was torched and defaced with graffiti reading “Revenge for Benayahu,” referring to Benayahu Mellet, who was killed in the deadly clashes near the village of Tel two days earlier. Another mosque, in the village of Kur, was also set ablaze. Cars were burned. Fields were set on fire. Elsewhere, according to witnesses, extremist settlers blocked a major road, attacked Palestinian motorists, and allegedly did so in full view of Israeli security forces. No arrests were reported.
In the incident on Friday, villagers had confronted armed settlers who had entered the village in a provocation, triggering a gun battle that left two Israelis and four Palestinians dead. The clash was the latest in an escalating wave of settler-Palestinian violence that has killed dozens of Palestinians and wounded hundreds this year, according to the United Nations and the Palestinian Authority — and not denied by Israel.
The images should horrify every Israeli and Jew. Not because they will generate another round of hostile headlines abroad, though they certainly will. Not because Hamas or Iran will exploit them for propaganda, though they will. They should horrify Israelis because they reveal a sickness that has been growing inside the Jewish state for years — one that the Netanyahu government has failed to confront, and some would say abetted.
For all the disasters that have befallen Israel in recent years, few have been as shameful as the tolerance of violent Jewish extremism in the West Bank. This is no longer a matter of isolated “price tag” attacks or a handful of hooligans. It has become a persistent phenomenon that includes the burning of places of worship, attacks on civilians, destruction of homes and farmland, vigilante raids into Palestinian villages, and organized acts of intimidation designed to terrorize entire communities. Sometimes it results in deaths, almost always in material damage, and without exception in reputational damage. Whatever political cause its perpetrators imagine they are serving, they are inflicting immense damage on Israel itself.
Two arrests were reported by Israeli police for the latest widespread mayhem – far from a crackdown; if past is prologue, those detained will soon be released. There have been no known convictions for the murder of Palestinians by radical settlers; a security apparatus that knew the exact location of Iranian leaders could not, apparently, find the perpetrators.
This is a moral failure and a national security disaster. At the very moment Israel is preparing for the possibility of renewed confrontation with Iran, remains engaged against Hamas, and continues to try to deter Hezbollah, it is simultaneously forced to contend with Jewish extremists opening yet another front. Every burned mosque, every unauthorized raid into a Palestinian village, every revenge attack requires soldiers, commanders, intelligence assets, and police resources. Every incident inflames the West Bank precisely when Israel can least afford another arena of instability.
The latest violence illustrates the pattern. And every burned mosque and vigilante actions helps Hamas and strengthens Iranian propaganda. Every assault on innocent Palestinians makes Israel’s diplomatic task immeasurably harder. Israel’s enemies could scarcely invent a more effective narrative than the one Jewish extremists hand them themselves.
Israel’s security establishment understands this better than anyone.
Reserve Major General Gadi Shamni, who commanded the IDF’s Central Command and served as the army’s top officer in the West Bank, warned on Israel Radio that the military has too often looked the other way while influential members of the government have effectively encouraged the radical fringe.
Shamni also described what he sees as the strategic vision animating the most extreme elements of the settler movement: gradually forcing Palestinians into disconnected islands of “Area A” autonomous zones while emptying much of the rest of the West Bank in preparation for eventual annexation.
If that assessment is correct, it represents one of the most cynical political projects imaginable.
Apart from its profound moral implications, it would guarantee perpetual conflict. It would invite international isolation, deepen Israel’s demographic and diplomatic dilemmas, and condemn another generation of Israelis to policing an endless insurgency. It is a blueprint for permanent instability.
Defenders of the government cry foul when settlers are criticized, claiming that the vast majority of them reject violence and are not responsible for the crimes committed by a handful of extremists. This is a misleading presentation.
Sure, most of the half million “settlers” are living in communities close to the pre-1967 border which Israel expects to receive in border swaps as part of any future two-state deal. But the 20% or so living well beyond the “security fence” line, deep inside the West Bank, are another matter.
Many of them are deeply committed ideologues who, in the best-case scenario, envision a future of permanent subjugation of the Palestinians. Moreover, those who dream of the Palestinians leaving altogether, one way or another, are not a handful, as I know very well from countless off-the-record conversations. And the radicals who commit actual crimes are quietly backed by a massive infrastructure that is run by radical Cabinet ministers with real political power. So the violent fringe has acquired influence wildly disproportionate to its numbers — and is serving a vile cause with real support.
That influence is visible not only in the attacks themselves but also in the willingness of prominent politicians to minimize them, excuse them, or rally publicly behind individuals accused of serious violence against Palestinians. Such gestures send a devastating message: that political loyalty may matter more than the rule of law.
It is a tragic indication of the foresight of the late Israeli philosopher Yishayahu Leibowitz, who warned over a half century ago that the occupation will eat away at Israel’s decency and democratic character.
The ideological ancestry of much of this movement leads back to Rabbi Meir Kahane, whose Kach movement was eventually banned from the Knesset because of its openly racist platform. Even former Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir — a career Likud politician, former underground fighter, and hardly a man of the political left — refused to remain in the Knesset chamber while Kahane spoke.
How far Israel has fallen that ideas once considered beyond the pale increasingly receive sympathy, protection or political indulgence.
The irony is, of course, that those who proclaim themselves the fiercest defenders of Israel are among those inflicting some of its deepest wounds. They weaken Israel’s international standing, strengthen its enemies, undermine society’s resolve, force young Israeli soldiers into impossible situations and stain Judaism itself.
The burned mosques of Qusra and Kur are another indication of what is at stake in the Oct. 27 election. If the opposition comes to power, this will not be tolerated any more.
The post Israel’s shameful West Bank front appeared first on The Forward.
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Troy Jackson wins Maine Democratic Senate nomination, keeps mum on Israel, AIPAC
(JTA) — BANGOR, Maine – Troy Jackson accepted the Democratic nomination for Maine’s U.S. Senate race on Saturday with no mention of Israel, sidestepping an issue that has become a focal point for many Maine Jews as they assess the party’s new standard-bearer.
Jackson secured the nomination in a landslide 566 to 5 vote by delegates at the nominating convention. Saundra Pelletier, the only remaining challenger after the rest of the field dropped out in the days leading up to the gathering, picked up the handful of votes that didn’t go to the winner.
While Jackson took several shots during his acceptance address at Sen. Susan Collins, the incumbent Republican he will now face in the general election, it was Pelletier who used her remarks to specifically malign Collins’ voting record on Israel.
“She voted to increase federal funding in defensive arms for Iran, and did not vote to take moderate measures to hold Netanyahu accountable,” Pelletier said, receiving a chorus from the crowd.
The victory for Jackson came after the state’s former Democratic nominee, Graham Platner, a staunch Israel critic, left the race earlier this month amid a sexual assault allegation, which he has denied. The resulting scramble to replace him upended the Democratic primary and prompted fresh scrutiny from Jewish Mainers of Jackson’s recent evolution on Israel.
Jackson, a former state lawmaker and union advocate, had previously said little publicly about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict during his two-decade career in state legislature. However, during the race to replace Platner, he has embraced the term “genocide” to describe Israel’s war in Gaza and called for an end to U.S. military aid to Israel on his campaign website, both positions championed by Platner before his exit. Jackson also has said he wouldn’t accept any funding from AIPAC.
But on Saturday, as a sea of supporters sporting his campaign’s blue and yellow “Troy Jackson” t-shirts cheered their new nominee, Jackson omitted any mention of Israel from his remarks. Instead, Jackson reaffirmed his commitments to passing Medicare for all, supporting union rights and restoring abortion rights nationwide, among other issues.
During his address following the decisive victory, Jackson also offered a message to Maine voters who remain on the fence:
“Whether you supported me from the beginning, supported another candidate, or are still deciding what you think of this fifth-generation logger from Allagash,” Jackson said. “I’ve always known this, that your trust has to be earned, and so I want you to hear this directly from me. There is a place in this campaign for all of you. There is work for you in this movement, and I will spend every day, now through November, earning that trust because today we turn the page.”
Amy Fried, a professor emerita of political science at the University of Maine who attended Saturday’s conference as an alternate delegate but did not cast a ballot, said that while she believed Jackson had addressed Israel in the lead-up to Saturday because “a lot of people are interested in the topic,” his speech reflected the issues he had been “concerned about his whole political career.”
“Obviously, he’d have to take votes on foreign policy and funding when he’s in the Senate,” Fried said. “But I think that his main interest is always in issues that have to do with housing and healthcare, you know, all of the matters that are sort of more day-to-day kitchen table issues.”
While Jackson avoided revisiting his recent stances on Israel, which have raised concern among some Jewish voters in Maine, about a dozen pro-Palestinian protesters rallied outside the convention hall in support of his candidacy.
“It’s a really positive step that you have nominated Troy Jackson,” one protester shouted through a megaphone. “I think he’s going to be a strong voice for the kind of values that I believe in and the people of Palestine, the children of Iran, and all the other places the U.S. bombed.”
Ronna Lugosch, a 71-year-old Jewish grandmother and delegate from Round Pond, Maine, said that she was “more excited now than I was before” about Jackson’s candidacy.
Lugosch, who supports Jackson’s stances on Israel, said she hadn’t noticed he had left the topic out of his remarks. “Unfortunately, it’s a sensitive topic, so that’s my guess that maybe he didn’t bring that up because it was just too much,” Lugosch said. “You know, he was being careful.”
Still, Lugosch said that she was “really impressed with all his comments about working people and organizing.”
“I’m going to campaign for him because we need to get rid of Susan Collins,” Lugosch said. “Before it was more of a sort of a defensive stance, but now I’m supportive, and so I feel better about going out into the community.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Troy Jackson wins Maine Democratic Senate nomination, keeps mum on Israel, AIPAC appeared first on The Forward.
