The most recommended books on antisemitism

Some people might not think writing a letter is a tremendously brave act, but it is if you are a young woman who knows in her heart that she needs to challenge a very famous and beloved author – a man even she admires! I had never heard of Eliza Davies and her letters to Charles Dickens and was captivated by the story. Davies wrote to Dickens protesting his stereotypical and harmful depiction of Jewish people in Oliver Twist. And she made a difference! I love how the story teaches kids that they, too, can make a difference and that activism takes many forms, in this case, letter-writing. Added bonus: the book contains quotes from Eliza’s actual letters, which appeals to me immensely as a history geek. 

This inspiring picture book is based on the true story of a little boy whose family is the target of an anti-semitic incident during Hanukkah. The community responds not with aggression but solidarity, with hundreds of homes displaying menorahs in their windows.

This book illustrates the idea that kindness and faith can turn one light into many, an echo of the Hanukkah miracle.

The art by Caldecott Medalist Paul Zelinksy is powerful and gorgeous. Inspirational!

Nine years is quite the slowburn. That’s how long it takes Sheldon Horowitz to achieve revenge for his father’s murder in Derek B. Miller’s dark comedy thriller How to Find Your Way in the Dark.

Of course, a lot of other things happen throughout the course of what is arguably more of a coming-of-age novel set against the backdrop of World War II than “YA,” but what hooked me in this story was Sheldon’s tenacity as he grows up, doggedly determined to find out who killed his father and why. The misadventures he gets into as a result, along with his cousins and best friend, are simultaneously bumbling and thrilling.

Pope Ratzinger, was the one who opened the Vatican’s archives to researchers, under lock and key until then. The documents hidden for centuries are finally seeing the light of day and this book is the result.

Painstakingly researched, the facts put to rest the Churches' long denial, that it had no role in spreading Antisemitism. The conduct of the Church and the Popes with regard to the Jews can no longer be overlooked, the tragic consequences that followed was the Holocaust. The Vatican's role and the centuries-old Antisemitism are accounted for, the exposed data speaks for itself. 

This one had me on the edge of my seat. More telling for me to be thrown back in time to the 1960s. I didn’t live this life, but the background was familiar. I remember the Kray brothers and I did once briefly have a job in the sleazy sort of club where the boss had his goons hold a guy so he could punch him in the gut. Scary. Simon Michael’s story is all too believable and it is a testament to his ability to pull me into that world that it threw up long-gone memories. The story is told in first person which works to keep you guessing along with the protagonist barrister sleuth. For me it was a thrill ride into the past.

The author sets up a challenge I could not ignore, and once I began reading, I could not stop. A friend recommended this book, and as soon as I heard its provocative title, I knew I had to read it.

Horn is entirely persuasive in her argument that when we find ourselves fascinated by Jews, it is often dead ones. The veneration of Anne Frank is a perfect example: she is the world’s darling because she did not live to be anything but a perfect victim. But Horn addresses lesser-known obsessions with dead Jews, too, enlightening me about the Jewish history of the Chinese city of Harbin and the little-known “righteous Gentile” Varian Fry.

I love how this book (and the accompanying podcast, an awesome bonus) combines effective research, moving personal experience, and ample wit to reveal the harm an obsession with dead Jews today can be.

This is the best history of the Dreyfus Affair and I wish it were available in English. Whereas most histories of the Affair cast Dreyfus as a hapless victim or as a patriotic automaton, who might not have even been a Dreyfusard had he not been Dreyfus, Duclert shows him to have been a true hero, whose super-human resolve and fortitude eventually allowed justice to prevail. Dreyfus emerges not as a martyr to antisemitism but as the first example of the resistance hero, the model for the struggle against authoritarianism and state terror in the twentieth century.

Where to begin? Proust’s gigantic masterpiece is the proverbial gift that keeps giving, none more so than in its explication and then repeated “demonstration” of the very thing it describes, the sensory triggers of what Proust calls involuntary memory but that here become the emotional propulsion for this book about writing the very beautiful book (or books—it comes in six volumes) you are reading.

This young adult novel nails the complex challenge of making the Holocaust – and antisemitism in general – relevant to contemporary teens.

Based on true events, the book chronicles the fallout after a favorite teacher instructs students to argue in favor of the Nazis’ Final Solution against the Jews. This story is close to my heart for many reasons, not the least of which is that I’ve personally witnessed a sixth-grade teacher assigning the class to argue in defense of the blood libel, the accusation that Jewish people murder Christian children to use their blood in religious rituals.

Youngsters deserve better than that.

This book is both timeless and a product of a specific moment (the post-war era). First to the timeless stuff: the authoritarian personality that Adorno and his co-authors describe remains alive and kicking in 2022. He is obsessed with appearing tough, power-hungry, incapable of self-criticism, and presents himself as a victim of other peoples’ malfeasance. As for the more dated stuff, Freud lurks behind the authors’ interpretations; reading this book, I am struck by how differently post-war Americans understood gender and sexuality than we do today. This book poses searching questions about the extent to which authoritarianism and proto-fascism are ingrained in modern life.