Lidé milují Židy mrtvé - Zprávy z děsivé přítomnosti – Hornová Dara (2023)

Dara Horn is known as a writer, but also as an author of penetrating essays. After being asked for many years by prominent newspapers and magazines to write about topics related to Jewish culture, she realized what all these assignments had in common: she was to write about dead Jews, never about the living. In these essays, Horn reflects on such disparate topics as the worldwide adoration of Anne Frank, the mythology surrounding the changing of Jewish names at Ellis Island, the grand traveling exhibition Auschwitz, the promotion of Jewish culture in Chinese Harbin, and the little-known life of the 'righteous gentile' Varian Fry, who helped save Arendt, Mahler, Werfel, Chagall, Feuchtwanger, and a number of other intellectuals from the Nazis. Through her often sarcastic writing, she affirms the vitality, complexity, and depth of Jewish life in the face of antisemitism, which is far from disarmed by the mantra 'Never forget,' but is instead on the rise. The engaging texts challenge readers to consider why we are so fascinated by past Jewish tragedies and why we have so little respect for the Jewish lives unfolding in the present. A painfully relevant read.