When Emory University historian Deborah Lipstadt was sued for libel by British author David Irving for branding him a Holocaust denier, many scholars and Jewish leaders urged her to ignore his absurd claims. Why give publicity to a man who had repeatedly argued that there were no gas chambers at Auschwitz and allow him to make himself a martyr for free speech?
Not oblivious to the dangers, Lipstadt understood that the case wasn’t just about Irving so much as the growing neo-Nazism in Europe. Further, there were surveys suggesting that more than one in five Americans were unsure that the Holocaust actually happened. Fighting Irving, she insisted, would strike a blow for fact, for how we record our past, and it would sound a warning about the fragility of memory.
On April 11, 2000, after a month-long trial, Justice Charles Gray issued a 349-page opinion in Lipstadt’s favor, concluding that “Irving has for his own ideological reasons persistently and deliberately misrepresented and manipulated historical evidence; that for the same reasons he has portrayed Hitler in an unwarrantedly favourable light . . . ; that he is an active Holocaust denier; that he is anti-Semitic and racist.”
Twenty-five years after Irving’s humiliation, Ambassador Lipstadt and the attorney who represented her in the British court, Anthony Julius, join us to discuss the case itself, its importance and how it continues to reverberate.
A British solicitor advocate known for serving as Princess Diana’s divorce lawyer, Anthony Julius is deputy chairman of international law firm Mishcon de Reya. Honorary solicitor to the Foundation for Jewish Heritage, he also holds a chair in Law and Arts at University College London and is visiting professor at the University of Haifa. As a scholar, he is the author of the widely praised Trials of the Diaspora: A History of Anti-Semitism in England and his new biography of Judaism’s founding father, Abraham: The First Jew.
A historian and author of three books, Deborah Lipstadt is a faculty member at Emory University. She served two terms on the US Holocaust Memorial Council and was then appointed by President Biden as the US Special Envoy for Monitoring and Combating Antisemitism. She was named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time magazine in 2023.
They will be in conversation with Abe Foxman, who served as National Director of the Anti-Defamation League for 28 years and then as vice chair of the board of trustees at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York City, where he led its efforts in fighting antisemitism. Appointed by President Biden to the United States Holocaust Memorial Council, Foxman previously served under Presidents Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton. He was one of the hidden children of the Holocaust.