This includes her take on Anne Frank in a chapter entitled “Everyone’s (Second) Favorite Dead Jew” on “Jewish Heritage sites” today in countries where no Jews remain (discussing her surreal visit to the Jewish sites in the Chinese city of Harbin, which for around 50 years was the home of Russian Jews who thrived before being killed or kicked out) and the myth that Jewish surnames were changed at Ellis Island, and why American Jews were forced to change their names and lie to their children about it. Norton & Company, 2021) winner of the National Jewish Book Award, Horn’s goal was to “unravel, document, describe and articulate the endless unspoken ways in which the popular obsession with dead Jews, even in its most apparently benign and civic-minded forms, is a profound affront to human dignity.” She has always been more interested in celebrating Jewish culture in her five novels.īut over the last several years, Horn has been called on to write essays on subjects like the Holocaust, Anne Frank and the Tree of Life shooting and she came to a realization – that a large number of the pieces she was being asked to write were about dead Jews. All are welcome.Award-winning writer to speak at Yale about her book People Love Dead Jewsĭara Horn says she never intended to write a book like People Love Dead Jews. She has taught courses in these subjects at Sarah Lawrence College and Yeshiva University, and held the Gerald Weinstock Visiting Professorship in Jewish Studies at Harvard.ĭara Horn will be onsite at Temple Israel to lead three learning sessions December 9 - 10, 2022. Horn received her doctorate in comparative literature from Harvard University, studying Yiddish and Hebrew.

She is the recipient of two National Jewish Book Awards, her books have been selected as New York Times Notable Books, Booklist’s 25 Best Books of the Decade, and San Francisco Chronicle’s Best Books of the Year, and her nonfiction work has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, among many other publications.

RSVP to McKenzie Johnson at Scholar in Residence Dara Horn is the award-winning author of six novels and the 2021 essay collection People Love Dead Jews: Reports from a Haunted Present. Horn comments on the recent attacks on the American Jewish community and in contrast also writes about the vitality of Jewish life and culture.Īll are invited to join us onsite or online for an engaging book discussion led by TILLI member Natalie Schatz. In a series of essays on historical and literary topics, Horn explores the question, “Are Jewish ghosts more valued than Jewish lives.” She writes that by focusing on the Holocaust the world sees antisemitism as an Old World phenomenon and not a New World problem. Dara Horn, the author of People Love Dead Jews is the 5783 Scholar in Residence at Temple Israel.

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