“People Love Dead Jews” Author and Professor Dara Horn Speaks at Assembly on Antisemitism

By JOHANNA HILLMAN, SHAY KASHIF, ANNA OSADCHAYA, FORREST ZENG and SOPHIE ZHU

    On Tuesday, Sept. 24, students and faculty gathered in the assembly hall for an eye-opening lecture on antisemitism by Professor Dara Horn, a scholar of Yiddish and Hebrew literature.

    Horn, a novelist, is the author of six books. Her most recent publication, People Love Dead Jews, won a 2021 National Jewish Book Award. Horn’s presentation explored Jewish history, culture, and tradition, capturing both the richness and pain of the Jewish experience. She also addressed the pertinent issue of antisemitism and clarified common misconceptions about Zionism. The book reflected on Horn’s experiences with antisemitism and Jewish history, from visiting the Chinese city of Harbin and reflecting on Jewish history’s commercialization in a city where almost every Jew has left or was expelled, to facing the task of explaining Shakespeare’s character of Shylock to her 10-year-old son.

    In her assembly, Horn started by describing the increasing prevalence of anti-Jewish hate crimes in America: “There’s a stark new reality that isn’t very apparent to people outside of the Jewish community.”

    Horn sought to humanize and actualize the modern Jewish experience, elaborating, “I’m talking about actual attacks on American Jews, street attacks, property destruction, arson, home invasion, physical assaults, and even killings here in the United States. I don’t think there’s a synagogue left in America that hasn’t been forced to evacuate in the past year.”

    Horn also corrected misconceptions many carry about Judaism. She pointed out that Jewish identity does not fit neatly into the boxes that groups are often put into. “Jews,” Horn explained, “are a type of social group that was common in the ancient Near East, and uncommon in the modern West: a joinable tribal group with a shared history, homeland, and culture.” She described how in Hebrew, this concept could be described in just one word: Am.

    In her speech, Horn explored the idea of the Jewish identity, questioning why it has always been defined in association or opposition to that of other religions. “The idea of Judaism has almost nothing to do with the actual content of Judaism and everything to do with whatever these societies aspire to overcome,” she explained. “Judaism becomes this evil that they’re trying to fight. Anti-Judaism becomes a righteous fight for a society’s ideals.”

    To Horn, antisemitism was not rooted in the conception that Jews were inferior, but rather superior, as “evil supervillains who need to be taken down.”

    Jewish history is riddled with the cyclical nature of oppression and, as Horn called it, “self-erasure.” On popular rhetoric against Jews, Horn explained, “The Soviet Union managed to persecute, imprison, torture and murder tens of thousands of Jews. They exported these slogans, then, to their client states in the developing world.”

    Horn concluded the assembly with a more hopeful vignette on her experience at a Hebrew language and literature conference with representatives from the Wampanoag. They were the only people who were not Hebrew professors in the conference, and after learning that they had come to inquire about how to revive a language just as Hebrew had been, Horn commented, “Hebrew was revived. It’s now the native language of 7 million people. It has its own Netflix series. Why can’t we have a Netflix series in Wôpanâak? And the answer is, why not?”

    After the assembly, Horn told The Exonian, “I was really excited to have the opportunity to speak to such a large audience of students.”

    Before working as a scholar, Horn was a novelist interested in Jewish culture and civilization. “I’m a novelist,” she said. “When I was in college and in graduate school, I was studying Hebrew and Yiddish literature. In fact, I published five novels before my book ‘People Love Dead Jews.’”

    She described her initial hesitancy to become involved with antisemitic scholarship. “I first tried to avoid this topic, and then I realized that the uncomfortable moments were where the story is. So, I traveled around the world reporting on this book, and ever since the book came out, it really touched a nerve.”

    Student responses to the assembly were mixed. Students mostly agreed on the assembly’s informative value, though questioned its focus. An anonymous upper said, “She only talked about antisemitism on a societal level. But I don’t think the assembly addressed the antisemitism that I’ve experienced or witnessed on this campus.”

    “She had a lot of strong points, and she brought a lot to the table. I don’t at all disagree with several of the points she made,” another anonymous upper said. “However, her aggressive tone of voice really didn’t help create a healthy or comfortable space for discussion. I know that a lot of people felt unsafe after the Tuesday assembly because there were more arguments and people forcefully urging others to have ‘conversations’ with them.”

    They continued, “I think there are other speakers that could be more effective and less triggering to some. I was a bit shocked at the assembly and taken aback—though I understand where this assembly came from, I thought it was counterproductive.”

    “I would have liked to see slides and more engagement,” the first anonymous upper added. “I think some more structure to the speech [would have also been helpful], where she explains why learning this is significant. Maybe some more personal examples, some framing of why she’s speaking, and how we can apply what she’s saying to our everyday lives.”

    Exeter Jewish Community (EJC) co-head and upper Elias Warner, viewed the speech in a less critical way, calling it “very necessary.” He said that “It called out a lot of things that needed to be called out and addressed.”

    EJC co-head and upper Ethan Benenson agreed: “I thought Dr. Horn did an excellent job shining a light on some of the issues many American Jews are facing right now.”

    Benenson emphasized the informational value of the assembly for many members of the community. “Since last year, I’ve noticed that topics about antisemitism and what it means to be a Jew have been coming up a lot more often, and I sometimes find myself in conversations that I don’t feel like I know enough to respond to. I know there are others in the Exeter Jewish Community who feel the same way,” Benenson said. “Having someone who is an expert in these issues speak to the school about them was very reassuring”

    After the assembly, Horn joined a group of about 20 students and faculty for lunch. At the lunch, students and faculty were invited to ask Horn any questions they might have. During the lunch, Dara Horn touched on modern politics, as well as diasporic Jewish identity.

    Horn thanked students for their patience and willingness to listen. “We all have so much to learn from each other if we’re all willing to be uncomfortable enough to learn it. I’d like to thank all of you [the student body] for being here today, and being uncomfortable enough to learn together with me.”

    Benenson concluded, “I hope that we as Exonians will continue to receive speakers like Dr. Horn with respect, empathy, and curiosity and stay mindful of the challenges that all of us face. Staying curious and open allows us to not only communicate and learn in a better way, but also makes us kinder, more accepting people.”