Join Dean Amaney Jamal for a timely and constructive dialogue on combating antisemitism, featuring Ambassador Deborah Lipstadt, former U.S. Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism, and Mark Oppenheimer, acclaimed journalist, author, and executive editor of Religion & Politics, an online journal of the John C. Danforth Center on Religion and Politics at Washington University in St. Louis. This discussion will go beyond historical context to examine the alarming rise of antisemitism today and explore concrete policy solutions. With their deep expertise in policy, media, and history, Lipstadt and Oppenheimer will share insights on effective strategies for countering hate, strengthening communities, and shaping policies to address this urgent challenge.

Biographies

H.E. Deborah Lipstadt, Former U.S. Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism, U.S. Department of State

Deborah Esther Lipstadt is an American historian and diplomat, best known as author of the books Denying the Holocaust (1993), History on Trial: My Day in Court with a Holocaust Denier (2005), The Eichmann Trial (2011), and Antisemitism: Here and Now (2019). She served as the United States Special Envoy for Monitoring and Combating Anti-Semitism from 2022 to 2025. Since 1993 she has been the Dorot Professor of Modern Jewish History and Holocaust Studies at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, US.

Lipstadt was a consultant to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. In 1994, President of the United States Bill Clinton appointed her to the United States Holocaust Memorial Council, and she served two terms. On July 30, 2021, President Joe Biden nominated her to be the United States Special Envoy for Monitoring and Combating Anti-Semitism. She was confirmed by voice-vote on March 30, 2022, and sworn in on May 3, 2022. She served in that position until January 2025. Lipstadt was named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time magazine in 2023.

Dr. Mark Oppenheimer, renowned journalist and author

I’m a father, a husband, a dog-owner, and a challah baker (not in order of importance), but writing and talking are what I do for work. I work at the John C. Danforth Center on Religion and Politics, at Washington University in St. Louis, as professor of practice and as editor of Arc: Religion, Politics, Et Cetera.

From 2010-2016 I wrote the Beliefs column, about religion, for The New York Times. My fifth and latest book is Squirrel Hill: The Tree of Life Synagogue Shooting & the Soul of a Neighborhood. It’s about Squirrel Hill, Pittsburgh, after the 2018 synagogue massacre. It was reviewed in the Times (“propulsive”), the  Post (“powerful”), the  Journal (“compelling”), and elsewhere.

I have also written a book about American religion in the late 1960s, a book about the bar and bat mitzvah in contemporary America, and a memoir of my years as a high school debater. And I co-authored The Newish Jewish Encyclopedia. I’m working on two biographies—of Judy Blume and Ann Landers—and a history of the great Princeton antisemitism scandal of 1958. I hold a Ph.D. in religious studies from Yale, but I believe only medical doctors should be called “Doctor.”

I have done a good deal of magazine and newspaper writing. Here are some very favorite magazine pieces; here is the archive of my Times columns. 

Sponsorship of an event does not constitute institutional endorsement of external speakers or views presented.

Please note that registration does not guarantee admission to the event. Entry is subject to venue capacity and other conditions. Thank you for your understanding.

A video recording will be posted on this page following conclusion of the event.