Sometimes a writer publishes a text that incisively addresses the ills and hypocrisies of the world – then events illustrate their point with a force that no stroke of the pen ever could, like a nesting matryoshka doll.
So it was with a recent essay in the New Yorker by Jewish journalist Masha Gessen, In the Shadow of the Holocaust. The work examines memory politics, particularly the myriad ways Germany has grappled with its historical crimes. Gessen describes the complex, quasi-legal rules that define and proscribe speech as antisemitic – from overtly prejudicial statements to claims that the State of Israel’s existence is racist and comparisons between its actions and Nazi policies.
