In her chapter on Anne Frank, arguably the world’s second-most-famous dead Jew, Horn writes a blistering analysis of her attraction: Right there in her Introduction she tips her hand that she does not see eye to eye with “toxic” criticism of the State of Israel, and presumes enough to pronounce what the limits of “normal” concern are-even though, contrary to the thesis of her book, that engagement with Israel is very much an issue not with the dead, but with living, breathing, present-day Jews. “But as our current century wore on and public conversations about Israel became increasingly toxic-far beyond any normal political concern-and as public conversations about observant Jews took on the same tone, I came to recognize the mania for dead Jews as something deeply perverse.” “Other people look at you and can only see the dead.” Much of the attention the world grants to Jews may seem benign and full of goodwill. “Sometimes your body is someone else’s haunted house,” Horn begins.

and all the Western countries-is founded on the death and resurrection of one Jew. It bears reminding readers that one of the great world religions-the largest in the U.S. 15 million of us who are living today but of those millions killed in pogroms, the Holocaust, mass murders and isolated incidents, as well as of communities in any number of countries that have disappeared, leaving, in many cases, few remnants of their existence. But more than that, Horn tries to dissect why for many people around the world the strongest and most favored impressions they have of Jews are not of the ca. The book follows in the wake of horrific fatal attacks on synagogues and other Jewish locales (Pittsburgh, San Diego, New Jersey).

She has taught Hebrew and Yiddish literature at Harvard, Sarah Lawrence College, and Yeshiva University. The literary magazine Granta has named her among the Best Young American Novelists. Horn is also a fiction writer, with titles such as In the Image, The World to Come, All Other Nights, A Guide for the Perplexed, and Eternal Life.

These essays touching on the overall theme-“reports,” with a more corroborated affidavit -were mostly published in other venues before coming together as a book of 12 fascinating, elegantly argued chapters. Her latest book won the National Jewish Book Award, the New York Times Notable Book of 2021, Chicago Public Library Best Book of the Year, Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year, ALA Notable Book, Natan Notable Book, and was a Kirkus Prize finalist. Nicholas Church, Kiel, Germany, Septem(License CC-BY-SA)ĭara Horn gave People Love Dead Jews: Reports from a Haunted Present an intentionally provocative title, and it worked. Diego Delso, Anne Frank diary on display at St.

Dara horn dead jews