Dara Horn: "People Love Dead Jews"

First, I wish everyone a happy and healthy and better year in 2022. For my first blog post of the New Year, I am writing about a new book that's a bit depressing, but profound in many ways. Dara Horn has written several novels and many op-eds and other types of essays for various publications. I've enjoyed reading two of her novels, A Guide for the Perplexed (2013) and The World to Come (2006).  I did not enjoy Horn's newest book People Love Dead Jews: Reports from a Haunted Present, a collection of her recent essays. It's a masterful work of genius, full of insights that I would rather not have.

People Love Dead Jews (published 2021)

What is it that I dislike about "feel good" novels about the Holocaust? Horn explains exactly what has bothered me more and more as the Holocaust gets further in the past and as rather shallow writers create their own imaginary Holocaust world that teaches the lessons they want to learn. Horn summarizes:

"We expect the good guys to be 'saved.' If that doesn’t happen, we at least expect the main character to have an 'epiphany.' And if that doesn’t happen, then at least the author ought to give us a 'moment of grace.' All three are Christian terms. So many of our expectations of literature are based on Christianity—and not just Christianity, but the precise points at which Christianity and Judaism diverge. And then I noticed something else: the canonical works by authors in Jewish languages almost never give their readers any of those things. (pp. 75-76). 

"Dead Jews are supposed to teach us about the beauty of the world and the wonders of redemption—otherwise, what was the point of killing them in the first place? That’s what dead Jews are for! ... This is far from a fringe attitude among contemporary readers, as just about every bestselling Holocaust novel of our current century makes fantastically clear. Holocaust novels that have sold millions of copies both in the United States and overseas in recent years are all 'uplifting,' even when they include the odd dead kid. The Tattooist of Auschwitz, a recent international mega-bestseller touted for its 'true story,' manages to present an Auschwitz that involves a heartwarming romance. Sarah’s Key, The Book Thief, The Boy in Striped Pajamas, and many other bestsellers, some of which have even become required reading in schools, all involve non-Jewish rescuers who risk or sacrifice their own lives to save hapless Jews, thus inspiring us all.... In addition to their wonderful non-Jewish characters, these books are almost invariably populated by the sort of relatable dead Jews whom readers can really get behind: the mostly non-religious, mostly non-Yiddish-speaking ones whom noble people tried to save, and whose deaths therefore teach us something beautiful about our shared and universal humanity, replete with epiphanies and moments of grace. Statistically speaking, this was not the experience of almost any Jews who endured the Holocaust. But for literature in non-Jewish languages, that grim reality is both inconvenient and irrelevant." (p. 80).

Horn discusses the content of Holocaust literature written in Jewish languages by survivors and also the contemporary accounts by Jews who managed to write something before they didn't survive. She finds that these are not in the least uplifting or beautiful. Some of the elements of such work are "confusion, starvation, denial, and sheer sadistic horror." (p. 83). 

The same problem, Horn explains, occurs in even the most well-meaning and carefully researched exhibits about the Holocaust and its survivors. One illustration was a lavish commercially produced and very accurate show, which required several hours to walk through: 

"At the end of the show, on-screen survivors talk in a loop about how people need to love one another. While listening to this, it occurs to me that I have never read survivor literature in Yiddish—the language spoken by 80 percent of victims—suggesting this idea. In Yiddish, speaking only to other Jews, survivors talk about their murdered families, about their destroyed centuries-old communities, about Jewish national independence, about Jewish history, about self-defense, and on rare occasions, about vengeance. Love rarely comes up; why would it? But it comes up here, in this for-profit exhibition. Here it is the ultimate message, the final solution.  

"That the Holocaust drives home the importance of love is an idea, like the idea that Holocaust education prevents antisemitism, that seems entirely unobjectionable. It is entirely objectionable. The Holocaust didn’t happen because of a lack of love. It happened because entire societies abdicated responsibility for their own problems, and instead blamed them on the people who represented—have always represented, since they first introduced the idea of commandedness to the world—the thing they were most afraid of: responsibility." (pp. 190-191).

In other chapters of People Love Dead Jews, Horn explores different themes and events, including the rise of antisemitism in our society, and her view of the numerous recent murderous attacks on synagogues and other Jewish places. She includes a very insightful essay about Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice, contradicting conventional views of the play and whether it is antisemitic.  It's a fascinating and horrifying essay collection. I wish that some of my fellow bloggers who are so enamored of feel-good Holocaust fiction would read what Horn has to say and try to follow her insights, but I don't think it will happen. 

Review © 2022 mae sander