People love dead Jews : reports from a haunted present

Abstract

"Renowned and beloved as a prizewinning novelist, Dara Horn is often asked by major publications to write on subjects related to Jewish culture--and increasingly in response to a recent wave of deadly antisemitic attacks. Horn was troubled to realize what all of these assignments had in common: she was being asked to write about dead Jews, never about living ones. In these striking essays, Horn draws upon her travels, her research, and also her own family to assert the vitality, complexity, and depth of Jewish life against an antisemitism that, far from being disarmed by the mantra of 'Never forget,' is on the rise. Horn reveals the subtle dehumanization built into the public piety that surrounds the Jewish past--making the radical argument that the benign reverence we give to past horrors is itself a profound affront to human dignity." --Back cover