Spectator Books: Deborah Lipstadt on anti-semitism and what you can and can't say about Israel
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The Spectator
4.4 • 785 Ratings
🗓️ 13 February 2019
⏱️ 35 minutes
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Summary
In this week's Spectator Books, Sam is joined by Deborah Lipstadt -- the historian who herself made a piece of history when she defeated the Holocaust denier David Irving in court. In her new book Antisemitism Now, Professor Lipstadt returns to the fray to look at the worldwide uptick of antisemitism in our own day and age. Sam asks her why she felt the need to write this book and frame it in the way she did, how antisemitism differs from other forms of prejudice, and what you can and can't say about Israel.
Presented by Sam Leith.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is Spectator Radio and you're listening to The Books Podcast with Sam Leith. |
| 0:11.3 | Hello and welcome to The Spectator's Books Podcast. I'm Sam Leith, the literary editor of The Spectator. |
| 0:16.7 | This week I'm joined by Deborah Lipstadt, the professor of history who's, I guess, best known at this stage for having taken on and seen off David Irving some years ago over the great libel trial about his Holocaust denial. |
| 0:31.2 | Now, Deborah is returning to what she describes as, you know, her toil in the sewers of Holocaust denial of anti-Semitism |
| 0:38.5 | with a new book called anti-Semitism here and now. Deborah, welcome. Can I stop by asking you, |
| 0:45.0 | you know, why this book now, what made you think right back into the sewer? Well, about four years ago, |
| 0:51.7 | I began to notice what I saw as an uptick in anti-Semitism. And just as some |
| 0:56.8 | background or contextualization for your listeners, I've been one of those who for years have said, |
| 1:03.2 | you know, let's not be chicken little. Dear me, the sky is not falling. Things are much better. |
| 1:08.6 | Of course, there's anti-Semitism, but look at all the good stuff, |
| 1:11.5 | look at all the acceptance, the achievements, et cetera. But a couple of years ago, I began to notice |
| 1:16.5 | that it seemed to be permeating both to the right and to the left politically. And I did what an |
| 1:23.8 | academic does when they see a problem that intrigues them, that puzzles them, |
| 1:28.2 | I sat down to write a book. And it was a much harder book to write than any of the other books |
| 1:35.0 | I've written, and I've written a couple of books, because it was contemporary. When I've been |
| 1:41.6 | writing about the Holocaust, different aspects of the Holocaust, |
| 1:44.8 | even Holocaust and all, it's in the past. It's people arguing about what was or talking about |
| 1:50.0 | was, studying what was. This was contemporary. And every day there seemed to be something new |
| 1:56.6 | happening, some new development, wherever it was, whether it was Paris, whether it was here in London, |
| 2:02.2 | whether it was the States, Charlottesville, whatever it might have been. By the end, my editor |
| 2:07.0 | had have literally dragged it out of my hands at the end of August 2018. She said, Deborah, |
| 2:13.2 | hit send today or we're going to miss our publishing deadline. So right before I hit send, I wrote, |
... |
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