Horn notes that this contextualizing happens even when the perpetrator of the crime does not come from the neighborhood, and even when the neighborhood has shown no other signs of ethnic tension. When reporting about hate crimes against Chasidic Jews, Horn notes, journalists often include a paragraph putting the crime in context: They report that ethnic tensions have grown in this changing neighborhood in reaction to an influx of Jews … or words to that effect.
Hate crimes happen with disheartening frequency all around the world, and journalists routinely write stories about the latest violence against Blacks, gays, Muslims, Asians, Jews and other stigmatized groups. Each essay focuses on different circumstances, but in all the circumstances, we have trouble noticing hatred against Jews and find uplifting lessons we can learn from the murder of Jews. The collection earns its shocking title, People Love Dead Jews. at Harvard in Yiddish, Hebrew and English literature), in these essays focuses on the evasions we use to avoid recognizing antisemitism. Horn, a celebrated novelist (who also earned a Ph.D.
We do not see an event that happens in front of our eyes until a sharp-eyed writer names it truly.Ī sharp-eyed writer means someone like Dara Horn. About 25 centuries earlier, Confucius wrote that “Wisdom depends on calling things by their proper names.” That sounds easy, but somehow, people get distracted. So they crafted and clung to the tale of the funny thing that happened to Grandpa at Ellis Island.(iStock) Name changing was often not a rejection of Judaism, but rather a recognition of the power of America’s antagonism toward Jews.Į rnest Hemingway claimed that “a writer’s job is to tell the truth.” The thought goes back a long way. But to tell their children that story would prove that America is not all that different, that here, too, Jews face prejudice, discrimination and violence. Then they discovered that they couldn’t get a job as Rosenberg but could get hired as Rose. They had come to a land that they thought promised the American Dream. Her answer: If Jews tell the truth about American antisemitism, they look like fools. Relying on the historian Kirsten Fermaglich’s meticulous research into New York City name-changing petitions that proved, beyond a doubt, that immigrants’ names were not altered at Ellis Island, Horn asks why Jews cling to the fiction that some misguided immigration agent changed their ancestors’ names. She turns away from Varian Fry rescuing Jewish artists in Vichy France and the Syrian synagogue smashed to rubble on her flickering screen. Encountering murderous antisemitism on American soil forces Horn to confront history closer to home.
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