Deborah Lipstadt 410210 219420927 2008-06-15T03:46:13Z Walshga 152508 [[Image:Denying the holocaust.jpg|thumb|right|Lipstadt's book: ''Denying The Holocaust'']] '''Deborah Esther Lipstadt''' (born March 18, 1947, [[New York City]]) is an [[United States|American]] [[historian]] and author of the book ''Denying the Holocaust''. She is the Dorot Professor of Modern Jewish and Holocaust Studies at [[Emory University]]. She received her BA from [[City College of New York]] and her MA and PhD from [[Brandeis University]]. Lipstadt was a consultant to the [[United States Holocaust Memorial Museum]]. In 1994, she was appointed by [[Bill Clinton]] to the United States Holocaust Memorial Council, on which she served two terms. <ref>{{cite web | last = [[Hebrew Union College|Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion]] ''News & Publications'' | title = Third Annual Bamberger Memorial Lecture with Deborah E. Lipstadt (11/22/05) | url=http://www.huc.edu/newspubs/pressroom/2005/11/bamberger1.shtml | accessdate = 2008-06-14 }}</ref> ==Irving sues for libel== [[David Irving]] sued her and her publisher, [[Penguin Books]], for libel in a British court, after she characterized some of his writings and public statements as [[Holocaust denial]] in her book ''Denying the Holocaust''. The legal defense team was led by [[Anthony Julius]], and the defense was presented in court by [[Richard Rampton]] [[Queen's Counsel|QC]] in early 2000. The expert witness for the defense was [[University of Cambridge|Cambridge]] historian [[Richard J. Evans]]. Although English libel law puts the burden of proof on the defendant rather than the plaintiff, [[wikisource:David Irving v. Penguin Books and Deborah Lipstadt|Lipstadt and Penguin won the case]] using the justification defense, [[viz.]] by demonstrating in court that Lipstadt's accusations against Irving were substantially true and therefore not libelous. The case was argued as a [[bench trial]] before [[Charles Gray (British judge)|Mister Justice Gray]], who produced a written judgment 334 pages long detailing [[David Irving|Irving]]'s systematic distortion of the historical record of [[World War II]]. ''[[The Times]]'' (April 14, 2000, p. 23) said of Lipstadt's victory, "History has had its day in court and scored a crushing victory."<ref>[http://www.hdot.org/trial Holocaust Denial On Trial: Holocaust Denial and the 2000 Libel Trial in the U.K.], a project of The Rabbi Donald A. Tam Institute for Jewish Studies at [[Emory University]].</ref> ==Free speech== Despite her acrimonious history with Holocaust denier [[David Irving]] (and in keeping with herself being sued by him for her writing), she has stated that she is personally opposed to the [[Austria]]n [[court]]'s decision[http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10355866] in 2005 to sentence Irving to three years in prison for his speech (Holocaust denial is punishable in Austria by a maximum 20-year sentence). "I am uncomfortable with imprisoning people for speech. Let him go and let him fade from everyone's radar screens."<ref>Brendan O'Neill, [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4578534.stm "'Irving? Let the guy go home',"] ''[[BBC News]]'' (January 4, 2006).</ref> =="Soft-core denial" of the Holocaust== In February 2007, Lipstadt used the [[neologism]] "soft-core [[Holocaust denial|denial]]" at the Zionist Federation's annual fundraising dinner in London. Referring to groups such as the [[Muslim Council of Britain]], reportedly she stated: "'When groups of people refuse to commemorate [[Holocaust Memorial Day]] unless equal time is given to anti-Muslim prejudice, this is soft-core [[Holocaust denial|denial]].'"<ref name=Paul>Quoted by Jonny Paul, [http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1170359797134&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FPrinter "Holocaust Scholar Warns of New 'soft-core' Denial,"] ''[[The Jerusalem Post]]'' (February 6, 2007).</ref> According to Paul, "She received huge applause when she asked how former US President [[Jimmy Carter]] could omit the years 1939-1947 from a chronology in his book"; referring to his recently-published and controversial book ''[[Palestine Peace Not Apartheid]]'', she said: "'When a former president of the United States writes a book on the [[Israeli-Palestinian conflict|Israeli-Palestinian crisis]] and writes a chronology at the beginning of the book in order to help them understand the emergence of the situation and in that chronology lists nothing of importance between 1939 and 1947, that is soft-core [[Holocaust denial|denial]].'"<ref name = Paul/> Along the same lines, Lipstadt has criticized the German philosopher and historian [[Ernst Nolte]] for engaging in what she calls “soft-core denial” of the Holocaust, and has argued that Nolte practises an even more dangerous form of [[Historical revisionism (negationism)|revisionism]] than the Holocaust-deniers. Speaking of Nolte in a 2003 interview, Lipstadt stated: "Historians such as the German Ernst Nolte are, in some ways, even more dangerous than the deniers. Nolte is an anti-Semite of the first order, who attempts to rehabilitate Hitler by saying that he was no worse than Stalin; but he is careful not to deny the Holocaust. Holocaust-deniers make Nolte's life more comfortable. They have, with their radical argumentation, pulled the center a little more to their side. Consequently, a less radical extremist, such as Nolte, finds himself closer to the middle ground, which makes him more dangerous" <ref>[http://www.jcpa.org/phas/phas-11.htm "Denial of the Holocaust and Immoral Equivalence"] ''The Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs'' (August 1, 2003).</ref> {{See main|Palestine Peace Not Apartheid}}{{See also|Commentary on Palestine Peace Not Apartheid}} ==Criticism by Ward Churchill== [[Ward Churchill]] accuses Lipstadt of denying the [[genocide]] of [[Indigenous peoples of the Americas|Native Americans]] in his book ''A Little Matter of Genocide'', though in some other respects he appears to appreciate her work. Churchill argues that by claiming that the [[Holocaust]] cannot be compared to anything else in human history, citing its uniqueness, Lipstadt herself is engaging in a form of what she later would call "soft-core denial"; for, if one does not recognize the genocide of Native Americans to be as morally despicable as the [[Holocaust]], then one is denying the true nature of that genocide, similarities among these otherwise-disparate genocidal phenomena.<ref name=ChurchillLittle>[[Ward Churchill]], ''A Little Matter of Genocide: Holocaust and Denial in the Americas, 1492 to the Present'' (San Francisco CA: [[City Lights Books]], 1998) pp. 31-53. ISBN 978-0-87286-323-1 (paperback); ISBN 978-0-87286-343-9 (hardcover)).</ref><ref name=ChurchillForbid>Cf. [[Ward Churchill]], [http://www.othervoices.org/2.1/churchill/denial.html "Forbidding the "G-Word": Holocaust Denial as Judicial Doctrine in Canada,"] ''[[Other Voices (open-access journal of cultural criticism)|Other Voices]]'' Vol. 2, No. 1 (February 2000).</ref> ==Bibliography== *''Beyond Belief: The American Press and the Coming of the Holocaust, 1933-1945'' (1993). ISBN 0-02-919161-0. *''Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory'' (1994). ISBN 0-452-27274-2. *''History on Trial: My Day in Court with David Irving'' (2005). ISBN 0-06-059376-8. ==Notes== <div class="references-small"> <references/> </div> ==External links== {{wikisource|David Irving v. Penguin Books and Deborah Lipstadt}} *[http://www.js.emory.edu/faculty/lipstadthomepage.htm Deborah Lipstadt] Faculty biography at [[Emory University]]. *[http://lipstadt.blogspot.com/ Deborah Lipstadt's blog]. *[http://www.ushmm.org/museum/exhibit/focus/antisemitism/voices/transcript/index.php?content=20070315 Voices on Antisemitism Interview with Deborah Lipstadt] from the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. *[http://www.hdot.org/ Holocaust Denial on Trial], a project of the Rabbi Donald A. Tam Institute for Jewish Studies at [[Emory University]]. *[http://www.guardian.co.uk/irving/ David Irving case], report by ''[[The Guardian]]''. {{DEFAULTSORT:Lipstadt, Deborah}} [[Category:1947 births]] [[Category:Brandeis University alumni]] [[Category:Nazi era scholars and writers]] [[Category:Historians of the Holocaust]] [[Category:Holocaust denial]] [[Category:Jewish American historians]] [[Category:Living people]] [[Category:People from Manhattan]] [[Category:Scholars of antisemitism]] [[cs:Deborah Lipstadt]] [[cy:Deborah Lipstadt]] [[de:Deborah Lipstadt]] [[fr:Deborah Lipstadt]] [[he:דברה ליפשטדט]] [[no:Deborah Lipstadt]] [[pl:Deborah Lipstadt]] [[sv:Deborah Lipstadt]]