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When Lipstadt said the F-word
Reply-To: H-NET H-Antisemitism <H-Antisemitism@H-NET.MSU.EDU>
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Author: Robert Michael
June 7, 2000
My brother recently sent me a long interview of Deborah Lipstadt, most of it centering around the Irving case. I had met her briefly years ago at a conference in Boston and, as a new teacher of Holocaust, I asked her during our conversation, “What do I do if a student makes antisemitic remarks in class?” She replied tersely, “F— ’em.” It was like Alexander cutting the Gordian Knot with his sword. Congrats, Deborah, you did good!
One statement in her interview caught my attention. She said of Irving: “But he’s not a normal person — he’s an antisemite.”
It always seemed to me that a normal person certainly could be an antisemite. Thoughts?
Robert Michael
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