Deborah Lipstadt says progress underway on combatting antisemitism in Gulf states

(JTA) — When Deborah Lipstadt recently met with a Saudi diplomat, she recalled, “He stood up and he said to me, ‘I come from a city where there were Jews.’”

That interaction in Saudi Arabia, a country that has been widely criticized for its human rights abuses, was a highlight of Lipstadt’s recent Middle East trip, her first tour as the U.S. State Department’s special envoy for antisemitism, which she recounted in a virtual briefing Monday. She characterized the interaction as cordial — but it also spoke to the costs of the sentiments that she has been charged with monitoring.

In the briefing,...