unsuccessfulbookclub's review

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emotional hopeful reflective sad fast-paced

5.0


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leandrathetbrzero's review

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challenging emotional informative reflective medium-paced

5.0

 Looking for a book to read for Jewish American Heritage Month?

↓ This book inspires me to read ↓
1. The Five Books of Miriam: A Woman’s Commentary on the Torah by Ellen Frankel
2. If All The Seas Were Ink: A Memoir by Ilana Kurshan
3. Letters to My Palestinian Neighbor by Yossi Klein Halevi

Dara Horn encourages her readers to reflect on their own knowledge and preconceived notions about Judaism and historical antisemitism. Through a mixture of personal stories, research, and collected interviews, she investigates why oppression and violence toward Jews makes such a compelling, marketable narrative to non-Jewish populations. A moving, informative read, People Love Dead Jews searches for the answers to modern society’s obsession with the death of Jews.

My advice is for you to read the first chapter, which focuses on Anne Frank, everyone’s “second favorite dead Jew” as described by Horn and the person whose life on which many of us (particularly Americans) base our understanding of Jews. That chapter will convince you to read the rest and expand your knowledge about the historical oppression of Jewish people. Horn travels the world both physically and through her research of primary documents and interviews of people from various backgrounds. I feel equally more informed and motivated to keep educating myself on Jewish and Jewish American heritage. I was moved to tears multiple times, and I cannot express how grateful I am that my library had a copy of this book in its collection. I can assure you that I will be adding it as a recommendation in the Staff Picks section as often as I can!

See more on this title and others at my booktube 

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razzberry_pi's review

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challenging dark reflective slow-paced

2.25

Some of the chapters, specifically "Everyone's (Second) Favourite Dead Jew", "On Rescuing Jews and Others", and "Dead American Jews, Part Three: Turning the Page" were interesting and well researched explanations of the Christian obsession with dead jews. 

However, a large majority of the chapters are tainted by the authors very clear pro-Israel feelings. On multiple occasions she conflates antisemitism and antizionism, including comparing the BDS movement to Nazi Germany while refusing to make the same comparison with mass shooters. Additionally, the author makes some shitty comments less/dif erently observant jews, impling that they are essentially collaborators with antisemites and degrading yhe the jewish people. 

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emzconklin's review

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challenging dark emotional informative medium-paced

4.5

“Sometimes your body is someone else’s haunted house.” From the very first line, this book of essays gets to the heart of what it is like to live in a world that doesn’t treasure lives of Jews until they’re gone, unless they’re teaching us something. And even then, treasure isn’t exactly what we’re doing. 

Antisemitism is on the upswing in the present year of 2023 and it’s never exactly been low. This book remains all too necessary. It challenged me in a lot of ways; I hope everyone reads it and engages with those challenges. 

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lcdavenport's review against another edition

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3.5

I will admit, I should've probably read the synopsis of this better than I had. I thoroughly enjoyed Horn's first chapter, regarding how people talk about Anne Frank. I don't think enough people are willing to say that the reason Anne says that she still believes there are good people is because she hadn't yet met the people who would murder her. I wish that Horn had maybe talked more about why people like the concept of Jews more than they like the existence of Jews, if that makes sense.

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leslie_overbookedsocialworker's review

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challenging dark informative reflective slow-paced

4.25


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ecnolte's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad tense medium-paced

4.5


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ashleysimon's review

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challenging dark emotional informative sad tense medium-paced

5.0


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marpaige's review

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challenging emotional informative reflective medium-paced

5.0


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clarabooksit's review against another edition

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dark emotional funny informative reflective sad medium-paced

4.5

-Supremely well-written: the combination of research, journalism and personal narrative is stunning, compelling and persuasive.
-It gutted my understanding of what anti-semitism really is and how it functions in society by highlighting just how insidious and pervasive it is.
-I was breathless, heartbroken and enraged while reading this.
-Horn’s persistent hope, compassion and humor are inspiring.
-I couldn’t stop thinking about it for weeks.

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