The author addresses her discomfort about being asked to write about "dead Jews" and offers thought provoking essays that illuminate the paradox of celebrating Jews who have died against a history of antisemitism. The essays include, among others, her discomfort at how the Anne Frank Museum de-emphasizes its Jewishness to appeal to a broader audience, the history of Jews in building the city of Harbin in Manchuria before they were forced to leave, and the little-known "righteous gentile" Varian Fry, an American who saved many Jewish cultural icons from the Holocaust.Publisher's description:
A startling exploration of how Jewish history is exploited to comfort the living. 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 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. 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.