This was a perfect book to build upon the issues discussed in As a Jew by Sarah Hurwitz. Horn explores antisemitism in various forms, most notably the idea that people are comfortable with the idea of Jews as victims, as long as they aren’t challenged to look beyond that. For example, people love the idea of Anne Frank, a girl who hid away and was then murdered – but they don’t look closer at her as a writer and an individual. Nor do they seek out the works of people who lived.
I’ve heard this concept applied to black people and Native Americans as well – for example, do we go beyond stories of slavery or genocide to really understand living people and their contributions? And are people most comfortable with stories where they play a savior role – for example, a white person helping a slave, or a non-Jew who saves Jews in the Holocaust? When you start looking, the examples of this in movies and stories are everywhere.
Similar to As A Jew, Horn explores Jews’ own feelings of discomfort or shame, their own efforts to seem “less Jewish” to avoid discrimination. I was particularly interested in her discussion about Ellis Island. Horn explains that Ellis Island never shortened or “Americanized” people’s last names, even though that’s what everyone thinks. In fact, she argues, many Jews that came to the U.S. went through lengthy court processes to change their names after facing discrimination. But that doesn’t feel like a story they want to tell their children, so it’s easier to say that it was done to them
Interestingly, a friend of mine said just recently that Ellis Island changed the name of her Italian family, and she was very specific about the change that was made. I’m very curious about this. Were different immigrants more likely to have their names shortened, or is this in fact a myth? After some searching online, the experts seem to be unanimous that Ellis Island never changed names, basing their records on ship manifestos (which might have been falsified).
Horn also explores Jewish mass-shootings and how those are often portrayed and minimized by the media, often with some element of blaming the victims (they gentrified the neighborhood, for example). She also explores ideas about assimilation – Jews have been attacked and expelled throughout history for failing to be like non-Jews. And I very much enjoyed her chapter on listening to Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice with her son and discussing the character of Shylock.
Since ancient times, in every place they have ever lived, Jews have represented the frightening prospect of freedom. As long as Jews existed in any society, there was evidence that it in fact wasn’t necessary to believe what everyone else believed, that those who disagreed with their neighbors could survive and even flourish against all odds. The Jews’ continued distinctiveness, despite overwhelming pressure to become like everyone else, demonstrated their enormous effort to cultivate that freedom: devotion to law and story, deep literacy, and an absolute obsessiveness about consciously transmitting those values between generations. The existence of Jews in any society is a reminder that freedom is possible, but only with responsibility—and that freedom without responsibility is no freedom at all.
Even where I questioned some of her points, I very much appreciated Horn’s direct and thorough approach to this conversation, and her book gave me a lot to think about. She also pointed me towards a lot of other resources for my Jewish reading, both in literature and nonfiction.
This book definitely left me feeling uncomfortable, especially as antisemitism continues to ramp up (this book was published in 2021). Jews have a frightening history – how many cities are there around the world where Jews once had a thriving community and now they are gone? I’ve traveled through a few myself, like Prague and Cordoba. What does that mean for my own identity as a Jew?
I should note that I read the second half of this book while recovering from surgery, so its probably a book I’ll return to so I can dig a little deeper. This is a short read and I recommend it to anyone interested in Jewish history.
