ANTISEMITISM

Professor Deborah Lipstadt, the preeminent American historian of Holocaust Studies and Modern Jewish History, examines the root causes of the spike in anti-Jewish violence and vandalism that have plagued Europe in the last five years.

Lipstadt asks, “Does this mean we are returning to the toxic, systemic brutality of the 1930s?” No, is her initial answer, quickly followed by: It’s complicated. Don’t get too comfortable. In THE NEW ANTI SEMITISM, Lipstadt makes connections that have gone unobserved among such diverse factors as the resurgence of racist right-wing nationalisms, left-liberal tolerance of hostility to Jews, the plight of the Palestinians, the relationship of antisemitism to anti-Zionism, and the rise of Islamic extremism. Contradictory forces, she explains, have found common scapegoats. In her investigation, using original research and reporting, Lipstadt intends to calm the fearful and arouse the complacent. Comparable to the polemical works of Christopher Hitchens, THE NEW ANTISEMITISM will be argumentative, controversial, and accessible. It will inform opinion and demand response. Deborah’s authoritative status was reaffirmed recently when President Obama named her to join UN Ambassador Samantha Power’s United States Presidential Delegation to the Tenth Anniversary of the OSCE’s Berlin Conference On Anti-Semitism. She is the author of DENYING THE HOLOCAUST, HISTORY ON TRIAL (being adapted into a film by David Hare), and THE EICHMANN TRIAL.