Deborah Lipstadt, US President Joe Biden's special envoy to combat antisemitism, spoke to Yanir Cozin on Galei Tzahal about her experiences visiting communities struck by the Hamas invasion. "I knew what happened. I saw the video, I heard the stories, but to stand there and see the houses full of shrapnel and blown open by RPGs - it was disturbing in a way that I'll never forget." She commented on the comparisons of the massacre to the Holocaust: "I don't think it damages the memory of the Holocaust, but it's different. Back then, there was no state of Israel, and there was no Holocaust for us to compare things to. There is no need to compare this to the Holocaust to show how horrifying it was.'' She discussed the phenomenon of antisemitism in the United States of America: "You would have to be willfully blind to say there is no antisemitism in the United States of America, but to call it a center of antisemitism is to exaggerate. Most Jews live as they did before Oct. 7. Even on campus, most people are not concerned with antisemitism, or with what is going on between Israel and Gaza. What is happening here is that the antisemites have started to show themselves more.'' Related articles: Why Deborah Lipstadt refuses to teach at Columbia UN chief called Francesca Albanese a 'horrible person' 'Antisemitism mutates, it comes from right, left, even from Jews' US, 35 countries adopt Guidelines for Countering Antisemitism ''Both parties are against antisemitism. There is no governor who approves of it, and the massive majority of the Senate is against it. Maybe there are a few Representatives who support it. The White House has published a national strategy against antisemitism. Some people who are against what Israel is doing in Gaza have displayed that in an antisemitic way, protesting in front of synagogues, boycotting Israeli businesses, happily tearing down posters of the hostages - that is antisemitic, but the USA is not a center of antisemitism.'' She does not think that there is a general threat of attacks against Jewish community buildings. "There may be isolated cases of attacks on synagogues or people who look Jewish during a protest. Joe Biden hates antisemitism, full stop. The antisemitism I see in other countries has become a matter of attacks against their democracy and national stability, and it is far worse than in the United States." Lipstadt has a suggestion for pushing back against antisemitism as well. ''This war has given antisemitism a chance to show itself. As part of my portfolio, which is both to monitor and combat antisemitism, I recommend taking the step of calling it Jew-hatred. It's simpler and more direct.''
