Professor and Jewish historian Deborah Lipstadt, former U.S. envoy for monitoring and combating antisemitism from 2022 to 2025, is set to receive Bar-Ilan University’s 2026 Jonathan Sacks Institute Prize for Outstanding Achievement as a Public Intellectual.
The award, established by the Gewurz family of Montreal in memory of Samuel Gewurz, honors figures whose work advances the ideas and moral vision of Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, chief rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth, who died in 2020.
It comes with $32,500, which will be presented to Lipstadt at a Bar-Ilan ceremony in May, where the 78-year-old is slated to deliver a public lecture titled “Antisemitism: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow.”
“Professor Lipstadt exemplifies the rare combination of intellectual rigor, moral courage, and public engagement that Rabbi Sacks so deeply admired,” said Jonathan Rynhold, professor and academic director of the Jonathan Sacks Institute. “Her work has shaped global discourse on antisemitism, truth and democratic resilience at a moment when these issues are more urgent than ever.”
Professor Arie Zaban, president of Bar-Ilan University in Ramat Gan, said that “Lipstadt’s work reminds us that standing up for truth requires courage, clarity and persistence.”
Lipstadt, a longtime Emory University professor, is known for her successful legal defense against British Holocaust-denier David Irving. In the announcement from the university, Bar-Ilan highlighted her books Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory and Antisemitism: Here and Now.
“I have been blessed to receive many honors in my life,” Lipstadt said. “But this one, to paraphrase the last chapter of the book of Proverbs, surpasses them all because of its connection with Bar-Ilan.”
It is an institution, she said, “that was dear to my family. It honored me with an honorary doctorate and was led by Rabbi Emanuel Rackman, who was one of the great role models in my life.”
Lipstadt added that “Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, whom I was privileged to know, was a driving force in shaping contemporary Jewish life. He was unparalleled, beloved and honored not just in the Jewish world, but the world at large.”
