Lipstadt Nomination Clears Committee
The nomination for Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism now heads to the full Senate for confirmation.
Dave Schechter is a veteran journalist whose career includes writing and producing reports from Israel and elsewhere in the Middle East.
The nomination of Emory University professor Deborah Lipstadt to be the U.S. Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism cleared the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Tuesday by a 13-9 vote.
All 11 of the committee’s Democrats voted in favor of Lipstadt’s nomination, along with two Republicans, Mitt Romney of Utah and Marco Rubio of Florida.
The nomination now goes to the full Senate, which is expected to vote in the coming weeks.
If confirmed, the 75-year-old Lipstadt would take a leave of absence from Emory, where she is the Dorot Professor of Modern Jewish History and Holocaust Studies in Emory’s Tam Institute for Jewish Studies and religion department.
Numerous Jewish groups had called on the committee to approve Lipstadt’s nomination and move it to the Senate floor.
A confirmation hearing and committee vote were required because the position now carries the rank of ambassador. Lipstadt was nominated by President Joe Biden on July 30, 2021, but did not receive a confirmation hearing until Feb. 8.
The delay was due in large measure to Wisconsin Republican Ron Johnson, a committee member, who placed a “hold” on the nomination because of Lipstadt’s Twitter post about him. On March 14, 2021, she posted an article about a statement by Johnson, that he would have been more concerned about the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol if the mob had been made up of “Black Lives Matter and antifa protesters” rather than supporters of then-Present Donald Trump.
Lipstadt’s comment said of Johnson’s statement, “This is white supremacy/nationalism. Pure and simple.”
Johnson accepted an apology Lipstadt offered during the Feb. 8 confirmation hearing, but declared her unfit for the job.
The Jewish Insider reported that before Tuesday’s committee vote, Johnson said that “A vote for her acknowledges that you’re okay with malicious poison.”
Before casting his vote, Texas Republican Ted Cruz called Lipstadt “a serious and intelligent person,” but added, “I was initially inclined to support this nomination but I am troubled by her public advocacy,” referring to her social media posts, and that “undermines the effectiveness of this job.”
In supporting the nomination, Maryland Democrat Ben Cardin said, “I can tell you that Deborah Lipstadt is the leader in this country on antisemitism.”
Reacting to the vote, Nevada Democrat Jacky Rosen, co-chair of the Senate Bipartisan Task Force for Combating Antisemitism, said in a statement that “Lipstadt is a highly qualified nominee who will call out antisemitism no matter where it comes from.”
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