More than 5,000 leaders and public figures have signed an open letter rejecting the accusation that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, calling the charge a form of anti-Jewish scapegoating that is fueling antisemitism worldwide.
“It’s an hour of crisis,” Deborah Lipstadt, former U.S. special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism, told JNS on Wednesday, “I don’t usually sign joint letters, but I said, ‘Why not? Let’s give it a try.’ I don’t know what else we can do, and I think it’s a time when you have to try every avenue.”
“We’re trying everything,” she said.
The letter, released by the nonprofit Creative Community for Peace, says the genocide accusation “has become a dangerous vehicle for scapegoating Jews and fueling antisemitism around the world.”
“We, the undersigned, are outraged and sickened by the latest blood libel to be inflicted on the Jewish people: the lie that Israel committed ‘genocide’ in Gaza. We reject this accusation with contempt,” the letter states.
“There is a vigorous debate within the Jewish community over aspects of how this war was fought, and that is a sign of moral health. So is our pain over every innocent life lost. But we must unite in repudiating the lie of genocide,” it reads. (JNS sought comment from CCFP.)
Lipstadt said the accusations are having a tangible effect on Jews.
“There’s a full-throated attack on Jews,” she told JNS. “When you hear of kids who are putting together their resumes not wanting to mention they were Jewish Studies majors, it’s coming down to the granular.”
“Of course the bigger things, too,” she said, pointing to violent attacks targeting Jewish communities, including the March terrorist attack at Temple Israel in West Bloomfield Township, Mich., the April stabbing of two Jewish men in Golders Green, London, and an August arson attack that destroyed the Nöam kosher restaurant in Montreal.
“Those are the things that grab our attention, but it’s also having a granular effect,” she said, noting that Jewish events routinely require security and describing the expense as a “tax.”
Lisptadt told JNS that while Jew-hatred “used to be seen as something that is wrong, illegitimate and prejudicial, now there’s an attack on those who will call out antisemitism.”
“No longer do we have to fight just the antisemitism, but we have to fight those who would say it’s all performative, it’s all phony, it’s not real,” she said. “We’ve seen it before with Holocaust denial.”
Lipstadt said that she hopes the letter will “reach some people.”
Other signatories include former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson; actors Mayim Bialik, Debra Messing and Patricia Heaton; and William Daroff, CEO of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations.
