Evansville Vanderburgh Public Library

People love dead Jews, reports from a haunted present, Dara Horn

eng

Includes bibliographical references

contains biographical information

no index present

non fiction

People love dead Jews

bibliography

1233265759

Dara Horn

reports from a haunted present

"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

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