I'm Jonathan Kapart and welcome to Kapart. The office of the special envoy to monitor and combat anti-Semitism at the State Department was created 20 years ago.

And today, in the wake of the October 7 Hamas attacks on Israel, the work of the office is more important than ever.

Ambassador Deborah Lipsstadt is the special envoy to monitor and combat anti-Semitism,

and is considered one of the world's foremost

historians on the Holocaust and anti-Semitism. In this conversation first

recorded for Washington Post live on June 11th,

Ambassador Lipsstadt talks about the impact of October 7th

on her work.

She explains how criticizing Israel

is not in and of itself anti-Semitic,

but gives examples of when it is.

And Ambassador Lipsdott talks about how the rise of anti-Semitism today is an echo of what

happened in the 1920s and the 1930s.

Anti-Semitism, which historians often call,

and rightfully so, the oldest or the longest continuous hatred,

has such deep roots in the DNA, in the soil, I would, maybe that's a better way

in the soil of our society that it's so easy to fall back on these anti-Semitic

groups whether you're talking about a real Jew you're talking about an

imaginary Jew or even if you're talking about the state.

So before we discuss your office, I want to start with the news yesterday that the UN Security

Council adopted a resolution endorsing the three-phase ceasefire plan for the

Israel-Hamass War announced by President Biden on May 31st. Why is it

...