(Jewish Group) Three major Jewish groups ask Senate to move forward Deborah Lipstadt nomination...

[Behind the Aegis]

Three major Jewish groups ask Senate to move forward Deborah Lipstadt nomination to be antisemitism monitor

Three major Jewish organizations are calling on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to convene a hearing on President Joe Biden’s nominee to be the State Department’s antisemitism monitor, Holocaust scholar Deborah Lipstadt.

“We are compelled to urge you to hold the Committee’s hearing on Prof. Lipstadt’s nomination without further delay,” said the letter from the Jewish Federations of North America, the Orthodox Union and the Anti-Defamation League.

The letter was addressed to the chairman of the committee, Democrat Robert Menendez of New Jersey, and its ranking member, Republican James Risch of Idaho, although its clearly intended target was Risch, who is using his prerogative to hold up a hearing.

Risch told Jewish Insider this week that he was concerned about past Lipstadt tweets in which she was critical of Republican lawmakers. Other Republican lawmakers fault her for appearing in an ad during last year’s presidential campaign likening former President Donald Trump’s rhetoric to those of the Nazis in the 1930s, before the Holocaust.

This week, Lipstadt testified on behalf of the plaintiffs in a civil suit against the organizers of the 2017 white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, where Trump famously said there were “very fine people on both sides” and which Biden made a centerpiece of his presidential campaign.

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