Six months after being nominated by President Joe Biden to be the first U.S. Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism with the rank of ambassador, Deborah Lipstadt will have her confirmation hearing for the position next Tuesday before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. While her nomination now will likely be approved by the Committee and the full Senate in short order, the delay in her conformation hearing has been unconscionable.
Professor Lipstadt was a totally appropriate choice for this appointment. Based on her professional career and academic publications, many suggested that she was one of the most qualified persons in the country for the position.
Like many other appointments sent to the Senate for confirmation, since January 2021, her hearings and vote were held up for petty political reasons. As many of the other nominees awaiting confirmation, Lipstadt is a Democrat who supported President Barack Obama, Secretary Hillary Clinton, as well as President Biden.
Lipstadt’s nomination has been held up because of some tweets and comments she made concerning white supremacist attitudes she believed were expressed by, among others, Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI); a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. She was similarly attacked for appearing in an ad during the 2020 campaign likening some of former President Trump’s remarks during the 2020 campaign to those espoused by the Nazis in the 1930’s.
This monumental delay is another very sad commentary on the state of politics in America in the 21st Century. A highly qualified nominee to monitor hate is being held up because Senators whose only priorities are strictly political. They are attacking Lipstadt for identifying hate wherever and whenever she sees it. It is even conceivable her nomination might have been postponed even longer had Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville, Texas, not been attacked three weeks ago. That anti-Semitic terrorist incident triggered a rash of anti-Semitic incidents throughout the country and might have forced the hand of Senator Johnson and his Republican colleagues to cease their blocking consideration of Lipstadt’s nomination.
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Whoopi Goldberg
For starters there is no basis to assume that Whoopi Goldberg is an anti-Semite, but what she said on “The View” was insensitive, ignorant, and anti-Semitic. She was quick to apologize, and ADL National Director Jonathan Greenblatt was similarly quick to respond and accept her apology. Likewise, the ABC Network acted immediately and suspended Goldberg for two weeks from her participation as a co-host on its program “The View”. This errant comment made by a popular Hollywood celebrity ought to underscore for Jews and Americans the deep lack of knowledge among many Americans about the Nazis and the Holocaust.
According to the most recent Pew Research Center report released in 2021 based on data collected in 2019-2020, only 45% of Americans surveyed know that 6 million Jews were killed in the Holocaust and 15% believe that less than 3 million were annihilated. (Among teenagers, only 38% of respondents knew that 6 million Jews died in the Shoah.) Less than 43% of Americans are even aware that Adolf Hitler came to power through a democratic process.
This lack of knowledge remains not withstanding numerous educational programs, television series, national and local remembrance days for the Holocaust. This ignorance persists despite the fact that the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington is the second most visited museum in Washington and that similar ones throughout the country also attract large numbers of visitors; nevertheless, many Americans barely have a fleeting knowledge about the Holocaust.
There are other studies suggest that many Americans have an even bleaker knowledge of the Holocaust and anti-Semitism. At same time, studies done in the U.K as well as on the European continent suggest as well an absence of knowledge, awareness, and understanding of Hitler’s program to annihilate the Jewish people; despite the fact that it occurred on the soil of many of these countries.
Whoopi Goldberg’s problem and that of many Americans, however, is that they have no idea what the definition of race is. America has a problem with race, but it is not a function of color. Race is based to a degree on similarities within certain groups, it is not based on biological or physical characteristics. Hitler sought to create a “master race”, believing that Aryans were superior to, among others, Jews. He sought to eliminate Jews as they were polluting the world’s population. Similarly, he sought to eliminate the Roma, gays, and Blacks. (See his treatment of Olympian start Jesse Owens.)
While racial conflict and racism has come to be used in the United States to define the continuing struggle between Blacks and Whites. This is not a conflict based on race but on the belief in the inferiority of Black human beings, thus rationalizing slavery. Whites exploited Blacks, because Whites believed they were “superior” than Blacks. The battle today is the residue of White resentment of Blacks and Blacks demanding genuine equality in this country. Unlike this fight, anti-Semitism and, specifically the Holocaust, is and was a conflict based on race.
For Whoopi Goldberg and those who understand this distinction, her return to “The View”, hopefully, will be salutary. Jewish history suggests a reality that this misunderstanding still requires much healing.
Another incisive article by Professor Kahn is a must read for woefully ignorant Americans regarding the Holocaust. I initiated a History of the Holocaust in 1975 at Long Island University. Many students--Jewish as well as non-Jewish--benefited from exposure to the salient if painful facts of this unparalleled tragedy. Nevertheless, in this digital, tik-tok culture, many young students are patently uninformed and indifferent to historical events. Therefore, Dr. Kahn's pivotal article provides a necessary wake-up call for educators and their pupils. Lest we forget, George Santayana warned us that the dangers of historical ignorance may lead to renewed tragedy if not total oblivion.