Deborah Lipstadt

Deborah E. Lipstadt is Dorot Professor of Modern Jewish History and Holocaust Studies at Emory University, where she was the founding director of the Institute for Jewish Studies. She is the author of Beyond Belief: the American Press and the Coming of the Holocaust 1933-1945; History on Trial: My Day in Court with a Holocaust Denier; The Eichmann Trial; Holocaust: An American Understanding and Antisemitism: Here and Now. After the British writer and Holocaust denier David Irving sued her for libel, a ten-week trial in London in 2000 resulted in an overwhelming victory for Lipstadt. Lipstadt is currently on the Boards of the Jewish Forward Advisory Committee and the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee and serves as a judge for the Rohr Prize in Jewish Literature. She has also served in several roles at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, including twice as a Presidential Appointee to the Museum’s Council, and was asked by President George W. Bush to represent the White House at the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. Lipstadt was previously a member of the U.S. Department of State’s Advisory Committee on Religious Persecution Abroad and was a Board Member of Hillel International, The Defiant Requiem, and The Covenant Foundation. She has received numerous awards for her research and writing and is the recipient of nine honorary degrees. Lipstadt received a B.A. from City College in New York and an M.A. and Ph.D. from Brandeis University. She is fluent in Hebrew.