markk

Anti-Semitism in our country is a subject that has unfortunately become all-too topical today. Unfortunately it is one that I don't know as much about as I should — which is usually when I start to look for books to add to my TBR list.

Currently the natural starting point for such a study would be Deborah Lipstadt's Antisemitism Here and Now given that it was written for the moment. But I was a little put off of it by this review, which describes it as "[w]ritten as a series of letters to two fictional people — Abigail and Joe, composites of students and colleagues Lipstadt has worked with as a professor at Emory University". Dialogues to fictional constructs are perhaps my least favorite form of nonfiction writing, so while I still may read it I will begin elsewhere.

Which brings me to Leonard Dinnerstein's book. Though over a quarter-century old, it's been long regarded as a good introduction to the subject. There's an additional, more personal reason for me to read it. Dinnerstein taught at the university I attended for my undergraduate degree, though I never had the opportunity to enroll in any of the classes he taught. His recent passing left me both feeling this omission and wondering what he must have thought of the recent turn in events in our country. Reading his book seems the best way of rectifying the omission in my education and answering that lingering question.