‘Eichman Trial’ author to be featured at Kol Ami

Deborah Lipstadt Historian and author Dr. Deborah E. Lipstadt, famed for her Holocaust studies and for winning a libel suit filed against her for calling an English author a Holocaust denier, will be the Scholar in Residence at Congregation Kol Ami in Tampa on the weekend of Feb. 24-26.

Kol Ami is collaborating with the University of South Florida Library’s Holocaust Collection to present Lipstadt, who is Dorot Professor of Modern Jewish and Holocaust Studies at Emory University in Atlanta.

The focus of the weekend will be on her most recent book, The Eichmann Trial, published in 2011.

On Friday, Feb. 24 she will speak at an Erev Shabbat service at 6 p.m. The topic will be “Jewish Ethics: A Pathway of Spirituality,” followed by a Shabbat dinner at 7:30 p.m.

Lipstadt will speak on “The New Anti- Semitism: How New? How Bad?” at Shabbat Service on Saturday, Feb. 25 at 9:30 a.m., with a luncheon following. On Sunday, she will speak at 9:45 a.m. on The Eichmann Trial, with a brunch to follow. The lectures and the Saturday luncheon are free. There are separate fees and reservations required to attend the Shabbat dinner on Friday and the Sunday brunch. Contact the Kol Ami office at (813) 962-6338 to make reservations for the dinner and brunch.

Lispstadt is no stranger to controversy. In 2008 she was critical of the Catholic church for rescinding the excommunication of a bishop who had been accused of Holocaust denial.

Last month, in an interview in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Lipstadt criticized American and Israeli politicians who invoke the Holocaust for contemporary political purposes, saying they are engaging in “Holocaust abuse,” which is similar to “soft-core denial” of the Holocaust.

“She lashed out at the ‘over the top pandering’ of Republican presidential candidates, describing their fawning support for Israel as ‘embarrassing’ and ‘unhealthy,’” Haaretz reported.

The paper quoted her as saying, “I think it is dangerous, just plain dangerous. It’s a distortion of what Israel is all about, what Zionism is all about,” adding “When you take these terrible moments in our history, and you use it for contemporary purposes, in order to fulfill your political objectives, you mangle history, you trample on it.”

The Eichmann Trial, published in 2011 in commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the Eichmann trial, received good reviews from the New York Times and Washington Post, and Publisher’s Weekly called it, “a penetrating and authoritative dissection of a landmark case and its after effects,” according to an Emory University website.

Her 2006 book History on Trial: My Day in Court with a Holocaust Denier, is the story of her libel trial in London against English author David Irving who sued her for calling him a Holocaust denier and right wing extremist in her 1993 book Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory. History on Trial won the 2006 National Jewish Book Award and was first runnerup for the Koret Award. Lipstadt won her case against Irving, with the judge finding Irving to be a Holocaust denier, a falsifier of history, a racist, and anti-Semite. According to the New York Times, the trial “put an end to the pretense that Mr. Irving is anything but a self-promoting apologist for Hitler.” Irving’s appeal of the ruling was rejected in 2001.

Lipstadt created the Institute for Jewish Studies at Emory and was its first director from 1998-2008. She directs the website www.hdot.org which contains answers to frequent claims made by deniers.

Lipstadt served as an historical consultant to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and helped design the section of the Museum dedicated to the American Response to the Holocaust. She has also served as a consultant for members of Congress and for the State Department on religious issues and has frequently been on national television and radio news shows.

She received her Ph.D. from Brandeis University and has received numerous awards from Jewish and academic institutions.