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Biden’s Envoy to Fight Antisemitism Says She Saw Surge of Hate After Oct. 7

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Reflecting at the end of her tenure, Deborah Lipstadt said that after the Hamas-led attack on Israel and the devastating war in Gaza, antisemitism became “almost normalized.”

Deborah Lipstadt, the U.S. special envoy to combat antisemitism, at the White House in 2023.Credit...Tom Brenner for The New York Times

March 4, 2025, 12:01 a.m. ET

When Deborah Lipstadt was appointed the Biden administration’s special envoy to fight antisemitism abroad, she started by visiting Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates for what she described as encouraging exchanges with leaders of the two Muslim nations.

Her hope was that Gulf leaders could use their voices to help stem antisemitism among Muslims around the world.

“It was all very promising,” said Dr. Lipstadt, who was a historian and scholar of antisemitism and genocide before she took on the role, with the rank of ambassador in 2022. “I think there was a real conversation going on.”

Then came the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.

It was the deadliest single day for Jews since the Nazi genocide of World War II. Israel’s devastating response that unfolded over the next 15 months, a war that killed tens of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza, internally displaced nearly the entire population of more than two million and left the territory in ruins.

“Oct. 7 of course changed everything,” Dr. Lipstadt said in Jerusalem in January just before her term ended.

Now, Dr. Lipstadt is back teaching at Emory University as a Distinguished Professor and is writing a memoir about her experiences serving the former president. She turned down an offer to teach a course next year at Columbia University.