People Love Dead Jews

Starred review from June 28, 2021
In this searing essay collection, novelist Horn (Eternal Life) delves into the “many strange and sickening ways in which the world’s affection for dead Jews shapes the present moment.” Analyzing The Merchant of Venice, Holocaust memorials, and press coverage of a mass shooting at a Jersey City, N.J., kosher grocery store in 2019, among other topics, Horn comes to the conclusion that “the enormous public interest in past Jewish suffering” does not signify respect for living Jews. She notes that it took months for leaders of the Anne Frank House to reverse their policy preventing an employee from wearing his yarmulke. (“Seems like a rather long time for the Anne Frank House to ponder whether it was a good idea to force a Jew into hiding,” Horn quips.) Documenting her visit to the Chinese city of Harbin, Horn recounts how Russian Jews built the town in the early 20th century, only to have their community decimated by Japanese occupiers in the 1930s. Recent efforts to refurbish Harbin’s Jewish heritage sites ignore that tragic history, however, in favor of fake artifacts and stereotypes about “rich and smart” Jews. Enlivened by Horn’s sharp sense of humor and fluid prose, this penetrating account will provoke soul-searching by Jews and non-Jews alike.

September 1, 2021

Horn, a scholar of comparative literature and a novelist in her own right (Eternal Life), has collected and revised her previously published articles and essays about ways in which Jews have been portrayed, perceived, and mythologized throughout world history. Topics range from the international embrace of Anne Frank, in "Everyone's (Second) Favorite Dead Jew," to the portrayal of Jews in Western literature ("Fictional Dead Jews," "Commuting with Shylock"); for these subjects, Horn draws on her expertise in Jewish literature. Horn will engage readers as she uncovers the nearly forgotten story of American journalist Varian Fry, who ran a Holocaust rescue network in France during World War II ("On Rescuing Jews and Others"), and unpacks common public responses to "Dead American Jews" in an essay that reflects on the 2018 shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh. The whole of Horn's book is much more than the sum of its parts, amounting to an interdisciplinary study of the pervasiveness of antisemitism in the United States and around the world. VERDICT A moving, meditative, well-written book that will be of profound interest to anyone concerned with Jewry and Jewish literature. Horn's writing is personable and engaging from start to finish.--Joel Neuberg, Santa Rosa Junior Coll. Lib., CA

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Starred review from July 15, 2021
A guided tour of the hypocrisy that serves as the mechanism by which antisemitism rages on unchecked. The cold fury and in-your-face phrasing of the title of acclaimed novelist Horn's essay collection sets the tone for this brilliantly readable yet purposefully disturbing book. In the first chapter, "Everyone's (Second) Favorite Dead Jew"--presumably Jesus Christ is No. 1--Horn looks at Anne Frank, who the author believes would never have been so beloved had she survived. At the heart of Frank's myth is a passage from her diary that reads, "I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are truly good at heart." As Horn points out, Frank was less than a month from meeting people who surely convinced her that she was wrong. The author ranges widely: the mythology of Ellis Island; the marketing of the Jewish history of Harbin, China (why call it "Property Seized from Dead or Expelled Jews" when you can call it a "Jewish Heritage Site"?); and the problematic elements of Holocaust museums and exhibits. Since these museums have not stopped people hating or killing Jews, wonders the author, what is the point of recalling the operation of the genocide at a "granular" level? Readers will be enthralled throughout by the fierce logic of Horn's arguments, novelty of research, black humor, and sharp phrasing. Particularly affecting is "Commuting With Shylock," in which Horn describes how she listened to an audio version of The Merchant of Venice with her precocious 10-year-old son, stopping frequently to explain key points. His clarity about the meaning of the "prick us, do we not bleed" speech is a revelation. Though Horn briefly mentions Zionism as a key aspect of Jewish heritage, one subject not discussed here is how the complex situation in the Middle East--characterized by dead Jews and dead Palestinians--fits into her analysis. A riveting, radical, essential revision of the stories we all know--and some we don't.

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Starred review from September 1, 2021
Horn, an award-winning author whose novels, including Eternal Life (2018), often intertwine Jewish issues, history, and the mercurial nature of time, brings all these themes to this provocative book of essays. Her thesis is contained succinctly in the book's shocking title; each chapter brings those words hauntingly and disturbingly to, well, all-too vivid life. There is an immediacy to her writing that makes it seem as though everything she addresses is happening at once, even though the incidents described may be separated by centuries. She begins with, as she puts it, ""Everyone's second favorite dead Jew,"" Anne Frank, revered for a diary that keeps her frozen in time with no consideration of the future she lost. Then, speaking of frozen, Horn details the fascinating story of Russian Jews who built a thriving community in a frigid part of China. Destroyed by the Japanese, it is now being rebuilt by the Chinese as a tourist attraction. Shylock, Chagall, and the victims of the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting are just a few of the Jews who wander through the pages, with Horn herself sometimes a witness, at others providing insightful commentary full of anguish and rage. This is not an easy book to read. But wrestling with Horn's ideas makes for a rich experience. In all, a profound lament.

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