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Reviews tagging 'Antisemitism'
People Love Dead Jews: Reports from a Haunted Present by Dara Horn
48 reviews
emzconklin's review
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
medium-paced
4.5
“Sometimes your body is someone else’s haunted house.” From the very first line, this book of essays gets to the heart of what it is like to live in a world that doesn’t treasure lives of Jews until they’re gone, unless they’re teaching us something. And even then, treasure isn’t exactly what we’re doing.
Antisemitism is on the upswing in the present year of 2023 and it’s never exactly been low. This book remains all too necessary. It challenged me in a lot of ways; I hope everyone reads it and engages with those challenges.
Antisemitism is on the upswing in the present year of 2023 and it’s never exactly been low. This book remains all too necessary. It challenged me in a lot of ways; I hope everyone reads it and engages with those challenges.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Antisemitism and Murder
Moderate: Violence and Gun violence
aschraiber's review
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
medium-paced
4.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Antisemitism and Genocide
Moderate: War
random19379's review
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Antisemitism, Child death, Genocide, Gore, Grief, and Racism
coreyarch9's review against another edition
challenging
dark
funny
informative
reflective
medium-paced
3.0
"What was the point of carrying so much about how people died if one cared so little about how they lived?"
First off, I'm guilty. I was always fascinated by the Holocaust in school or the passover story in church. And not because I actually love dead jews, but because I'm guilty of being exactly who Horn was referring to when she wrote, "Like most people in the world, they had only encountered dead jews. People whose sole attribute was that they had been murdered. And whose murder served a clear purpose, which was to teach us something."
Now, I make a point to read and learn about other religions and cultures, to ask my friends about their experiences and beliefs. But I can not fathom the sheer exhaustion of having every well-known story of somebody who looked like me focusing on death. That mere survival is my greatest accomplishment.
Horn does a great job of laying out that exhaustion and sharing the importance of stories that highlight joy. And she does so with wit and morbid humor that I couldn't get enough of!
First off, I'm guilty. I was always fascinated by the Holocaust in school or the passover story in church. And not because I actually love dead jews, but because I'm guilty of being exactly who Horn was referring to when she wrote, "Like most people in the world, they had only encountered dead jews. People whose sole attribute was that they had been murdered. And whose murder served a clear purpose, which was to teach us something."
Now, I make a point to read and learn about other religions and cultures, to ask my friends about their experiences and beliefs. But I can not fathom the sheer exhaustion of having every well-known story of somebody who looked like me focusing on death. That mere survival is my greatest accomplishment.
Horn does a great job of laying out that exhaustion and sharing the importance of stories that highlight joy. And she does so with wit and morbid humor that I couldn't get enough of!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Xenophobia, Antisemitism, and Genocide
kinesixtape's review against another edition
challenging
informative
reflective
slow-paced
3.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Antisemitism
lcdavenport's review against another edition
3.5
I will admit, I should've probably read the synopsis of this better than I had. I thoroughly enjoyed Horn's first chapter, regarding how people talk about Anne Frank. I don't think enough people are willing to say that the reason Anne says that she still believes there are good people is because she hadn't yet met the people who would murder her. I wish that Horn had maybe talked more about why people like the concept of Jews more than they like the existence of Jews, if that makes sense.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Mass/school shootings, Hate crime, Gun violence, Antisemitism, Murder, and Violence
etty_m's review against another edition
emotional
informative
reflective
slow-paced
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Antisemitism
leslie_overbookedsocialworker's review
challenging
dark
informative
reflective
slow-paced
4.25
Content Warnings
Graphic: Antisemitism, Genocide, Violence, Death, Hate crime, Deportation, Gaslighting, and Grief
sadgirlsidney's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
fast-paced
4.0
For us dead jews are not a metaphor but rather actual people that we do not want our children to become.
A tough but exceptionally important read for the present reader. This book stares down the societal obsession with trauma porn and the need for victims to forgive above all atrocities and calls it out on its bullshit. And it left me wondering, how do I interact with survivors who do not comfort me? How do I view them v.s those that do comfort me?
It also left me thinking of a quote that had been etched into a wall in a concentration camp “If there is a God, he will have to beg for my forgiveness.”
Content Warnings
Graphic: Genocide and Antisemitism