Reading Human Rights: People Love Dead Jews by Dara Horn (Online)

Reading Human Rights is a monthly book discussion hosted by the Howard County Office of Human Rights & Equity and Howard County Library System. We read books that promote cultural awareness, diversity, equity.

People Love Dead Jews: Reports from a Haunted Present

Winner of the 2021 National Jewish Book Award for Con­tem­po­rary Jew­ish Life and Prac­tice
Finalist for the 2021 Kirkus Prize in Nonfiction

A New York Times Notable Book of the Year A Wall Street Journal, Chicago Public Library, Publishers Weekly, and Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year

A startling exploration of how Jewish history is exploited to flatter the living

Reflecting on subjects as far-flung as the international veneration of Anne Frank, the blockbuster traveling 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 on her own family’s life — trying to explain Shakespeare’s Shylock to a curious 10-year-old, her anger when swastikas are drawn on desks at 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.

Dara Horn is the author of five novels and was one of Granta’s Best Young American Novelists. She has taught Jewish literature at Harvard, Sarah Lawrence College, and Yeshiva University. She lives in New Jersey with her family.

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Registered customers should place a hold request on the title using their library card in order to receive a copy to read before the discussion.  Availability of physical copies is not guaranteed.