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People love dead Jews : reports from a haunted present / Dara Horn.

By: Material type: TextTextPublisher: New York, NY : W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., [2021]Copyright date: ©2021Edition: First editionDescription: xxi, 237 pages ; 22 cmContent type:
  • text
Media type:
  • unmediated
Carrier type:
  • volume
ISBN:
  • 9780393531565
  • 0393531562
Subject(s):
Contents:
Introduction: In the haunted present -- 1. Everyone's (second) favorite dead Jew -- 2. Frozen Jews -- 3. Dead American Jews, part one -- 4. Executed Jews -- 5. Fictional dead Jews -- 6. Legends of dead Jews -- 7. Dead American Jews, part two -- 8. On rescuing Jews and others -- 9. Dead Jews of the desert -- 10. Blockbuster dead Jews -- 11. Communing with Shylock -- 12. Dead American Jews, part three: turning the page -- Acknowledgments -- Works consulted.
Summary: "A startling exploration of how Jewish history is exploited to comfort the living. Reflecting on subjects as far-flung as the international veneration of Anne Frank, the blockbuster travelling exhibition called "Auschwitz," the Jewish history of the Chinese city of Harbin, and the little known "righteous-gentile" Varian Fry, Dara Horn challenges us to confront the reasons why there might be so much fascination with Jewish deaths, as emblematic of the worst of evils the world has to offer, and so little respect for Jewish lives, as they continue to unfold in the present. Horn draws upon her own family life -- trying to explain Shakespeare's Shylock to a curious 10-year-old, her anger when swastikas are drawn on desks in her children's school in New Jersey, the profound and essential perspective offered by traditional religious practice, prayer, and study -- to assert the vitality, complexity and depth of this life against an anti-Semitism that, far from being disarmed by the mantra of "Never forget," is on the rise"--Provided by publisher.
List(s) this item appears in: FPL Jewish American Heritage Month
Holdings
Item type Home library Collection Call number Materials specified Status Date due Barcode Item holds
Adult Book Adult Book Dr. James Carlson Library NonFiction 909.0492 H813 Available 33111010592273
Adult Book Adult Book Main Library NonFiction 909.0492 H813 Available 33111010731723
Total holds: 0

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Renowned and beloved as a prizewinning novelist, Dara Horn has also been publishing penetrating essays since she was a teenager. 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 essays, Horn reflects on subjects as far-flung as the international veneration of Anne Frank, the mythology that Jewish family names were changed at Ellis Island, the blockbuster traveling exhibition Auschwitz, the marketing of the Jewish history of Harbin, China, and the little-known life of the "righteous Gentile" Varian Fry. Throughout, she challenges us to confront the reasons why there might be so much fascination with Jewish deaths, and so little respect for Jewish lives unfolding in the present.

Horn draws upon her travels, her research, and also her own family life--trying to explain Shakespeare's Shylock to a curious ten-year-old, her anger when swastikas are drawn on desks in her children's school, the profound perspective offered by traditional religious practice and study--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. As Horn explores the (not so) shocking attacks on the American Jewish community in recent years, she reveals the subtler 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.

Includes bibliographical references (pages [233]-237).

Introduction: In the haunted present -- 1. Everyone's (second) favorite dead Jew -- 2. Frozen Jews -- 3. Dead American Jews, part one -- 4. Executed Jews -- 5. Fictional dead Jews -- 6. Legends of dead Jews -- 7. Dead American Jews, part two -- 8. On rescuing Jews and others -- 9. Dead Jews of the desert -- 10. Blockbuster dead Jews -- 11. Communing with Shylock -- 12. Dead American Jews, part three: turning the page -- Acknowledgments -- Works consulted.

"A startling exploration of how Jewish history is exploited to comfort the living. Reflecting on subjects as far-flung as the international veneration of Anne Frank, the blockbuster travelling exhibition called "Auschwitz," the Jewish history of the Chinese city of Harbin, and the little known "righteous-gentile" Varian Fry, Dara Horn challenges us to confront the reasons why there might be so much fascination with Jewish deaths, as emblematic of the worst of evils the world has to offer, and so little respect for Jewish lives, as they continue to unfold in the present. Horn draws upon her own family life -- trying to explain Shakespeare's Shylock to a curious 10-year-old, her anger when swastikas are drawn on desks in her children's school in New Jersey, the profound and essential perspective offered by traditional religious practice, prayer, and study -- to assert the vitality, complexity and depth of this life against an anti-Semitism that, far from being disarmed by the mantra of "Never forget," is on the rise"--Provided by publisher.

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