People Love Dead Jews: Reports from a Haunted Present

"This is a book Dara Horn didn’t want to write, but something bugged the novelist about the way Jewish victims of antisemitic violence are remembered. Like Anne Frank, who was betrayed and died in a Nazi concentration camp, yet is frequently quoted for this line: “I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are truly good at heart.” The teenage diarist’s legacy, Horn argues, has been deployed to ease discomfort over the Holocaust and provide “grace and absolution from a murdered Jew (exactly the gift that lies at the heart of Christianity).” Writing about topics as varied as a blockbuster Auschwitz exhibit in New York and a Chinese city’s efforts to commemorate its vanished Jewish community, Horn argues the intentions may be noble but where these endeavors fall short is in fostering an acceptance of Jews as they are. As she writes in the opening sentence, “People love dead Jews. Living Jews, not so much.”"