
There's are a lot of outrageous opinions that are now considered acceptable. I'm 45 and I'm old enough to remember before the internet, there were celebrities who would say crazy things, but there was a gatekeeper who was keeping these people in check and you wouldn't necessarily hear all of the things that they were thinking when they were on the toilet at 2:00 in the morning. And there's this level of outrage that's sort of very common now.

I think the guardrails have come off on what's considered acceptable. I was pretty impressed that anybody would respond in that way because I think we usually don't see that kind of response to antisemitism. Saj: Do you feel the response was appropriate?ĭara: Actually, I know people are complaining that it came a week late or something like that. Credit to these companies that dumped him, although they may have been looking for other reasons to dump him. There's been vandalism on Jewish cemeteries that says, "Kanye was right." And this is disturbing. I live in New Jersey and it was a couple days after that that somebody was making credible threats against synagogues in New Jersey, which it sounds like was encouraged by this. This is unfortunately a hugely influential set of beliefs, which is not so surprising. And I'm not the first person to notice that he has twice as many followers online as there are Jews in the world.

This is unfortunately not an uncommon sentiment along a lot of people. I hate that I have to have an opinion about Kanye West. Saj Freiberg: What are your thoughts on Kanye West and the response to the companies that dumped him?ĭara Horn: Oh, man. Here is an edited version of our interview. Her provocative book could not be more timely. I recently had a wide-ranging, thought-provoking discussion with Dara. She is the recipient of numerous prizes for her writing, including two National Jewish Book Awards and most recently a Kirkus Prize for People Love Dead Jews.

She is a critically acclaimed novelist and scholar of Yiddish literature. Dara Horn is the author of New York Times Notable Book, People Love Dead Jews: Reports from a Haunted Present.
