Dara Horn, winner of three National Jewish Book Awards and Kirkus Prize finalist, joins Zibby to discuss her irreverent, moving, and hilariously deadpan graphic novel for young readers, ONE LITTLE GOAT. Dara explains how she uses a talking scapegoat and a never-ending Seder to bring ancient stories to life for readers of all ages. She shares her childhood obsession with the passage of time and her deep connection to the Jewish tradition, and then dives into her acclaimed book, PEOPLE LOVE DEAD JEWS, touching on the shared themes between the two books: memory, Jewish identity, and how history lives on in us.

Transcript:

Zibby: Welcome, Dara. Thank you so much for coming on Totally Booked with Zibby to talk about your latest book, One Little Goat illustrated also by Theo Ellsworth. And then also people love Dead Jews because I just read that too, so we have to talk about it.

Dara: Thank you for happy. Thank you. 

Zibby: Okay, so in both books you talk about how as a kid you wanted to stop time essentially, and how at the end of every day you had this sort of anxiety really, that it was like you could never get that day back and what happens to all those past days and I totally relate to that oh my gosh, so much. Talk about that and how it motivates some of your deep digging into history and the tell and everything else. 

Dara: Yes. So yeah, this was what motivated me as a writer was this overwhelming sense of time and as you said, like when I was a child, constantly feeling like this was slipping through my fingers, which is an bizarre thing to think when you're like six.

You'd think you'd feel that when you were much older, but I was feeling this when I was six and feeling also as as I put it. Yeah. What this day that disappeared, where did it go? And, feeling, very, disturbed by this. And when I was writing as a child, like I was always writing, it was like documenting, that was my, I wasn't my motivated by making up stories, although of course I've since then published five novels.

And now this book but that wasn't my prime motivation. It was capturing time and, and growing up in the Jewish community and in this tradition, I felt very fortunate to discover like many centuries of people who, to my child's mind, seem to have solved this problem. Because what I've discovered in Jewish tradition is this extremely deep historical consciousness where it isn't even just an awareness of the past or, oh, this is a long tradition. There's this and this part I, this, I was not articulating these things when I was six, just so you know. I product based, but 

Zibby: just to shame us and what all our kids are doing.

Dara: No, I was not like meeting, like Yosef Shami at six, at some point when I was reading Yosef. Diami. Who's this? Great modern Jewish historian passed away fairly recently in the past, I don't know, 10 years. He has this book called Zaur, which means to remember. And he says in that, that the idea of history is alien to Jewish tradition because in Jewish tradition, the foundation isn't history, it's memory.

And what he means by that is, and the, he has a line in that book where he says in, and I'm gonna not get the wording right, but it's something like, in Jewish tradition, the past was not a series of events to be contemplated at a distance, but rather a series of situations into which one is existentially drawn.

Zibby: I get it. 

Dara: And that is, yes, that is very much my experience of Jewish life and it's very much the way is the tradition is designed right. So you have. This idea that it wasn't just that generation of Israelites who were standing at Sinai to, would take, to receive the Torah. It was all of their future descendants, and of course, and for this Passover related book, it's this idea that, in every generation we see ourselves as if we personally came out of Egypt, each person is obligated to see themselves as if they personally came out of Egypt. And I was tapping into that and to the idea of the tell, which, I will, I'm sure get to this the.

It's very foundational to this new book I put just published One Little Goat. The Atal is an archeological mound that's made out of layers of civilization. And you find these in Israel where there's, it's, there's a, it's like an artificial, it looks like a hill for the outside, but it's actually an artificial hill because it's all these ruins of different civilizational layers, one on top of the other.

And so that the most recent layers are at the top, and then the oldest are at the very bottom. And, to me this was this metaphor for Jewish life, and it's something I see in many different ways as a writer, as a scholar of Jewish literature, I stu my doctorate's in Hebrew and Yiddish literature, like you see it in the language people use where there's layers and layers.

And I was thinking about this as I was writing One Little Goat, which is my first, book for, as we say, young readers. And because I feel like there's something, there's a reason why that a lot of popular children's literature is some form of portal fiction. Where it's there's some portal to some world that's bigger than yours.

You go to this the track in King's Cross Station, and then there's a secret door. The, there's the door to Narnia in the back of the wardrobe. There's a reason for that, which I think is that children's lives are very very constrained, and they're always looking for some outlet to some access point to get to this bigger world that's bigger than theirs. And that was my experience as a child. 'cause I feel first of all, all children's lives are very constrained, but also, I think there's something about American life in particular, which very, really pushes you to just be living in the present all the time.

There's almost a rejection of history. This idea that oh, we're always making progress and the best is ahead and, it doesn't matter where your parents came from. It's what you do with your, this, the new opportunities you have. Whether this is true or not irrelevant, this is like the ethos of the country.

In Judaism, it's the opposite. I felt like I found that portal when I wouldn't have been able to use this language, but as a child, like I found that sort of outlet I found where the disappearing days were. Inside this tradition. 

Zibby: Wow. The way you visually depicted it and with such humor in the book, I can't wait to give this to my kids to read but it's good for grownups too.

This is, it's a, it's just another way of framing it. And I always think about this too when we're at Seder, like, how many Seders, like what's going on in this part of the world and what happened in this person's family? And it's like mind-boggling, the scope of it, right? And it's all going on at the same time.

And by you having the goat and the main character go into his family life in different parts and then, Sigma, Troy's mom, and like all these places through history, just to understand where he is right then and to get a better context for his own family. It was like a genius way to reframe it and make it funny.

And I love the scapegoat. It was, it's a, it's such an original way to tell a story that has literally probably been told more than any other story ever.

Dara: Thank you. Yes, yes, it's a, because as in publishing, it's like you have to be like, it's not even just oh, this is a children's book versus an adult book.

It's oh, this is middle grade. Oh, this is, young adult, obviously for the publisher's sake this is a book for, ages, whatever to whatever. You're right, it's a book for anybody. And the reality is this is, I feel like this is a book I was born to write.

This is like my, I don't know, seventh or eighth book. I don't know but. And all my other books are dealing with the same question right. About how you find yourself in, all my books are about Jewish culture, but it's all my books are about this sort of question of how the past live was, lives within the present.

This is just like the most direct version of it. 

Zibby: Yeah. 

Dara: And and as you say, yeah, the funniest and, yeah, I'm, it's, yes, I can, I just, if we wanna say a little more about just what the frame is and.. 

Zibby: Yeah. Frame, frame the story. 

Yes. 

Dara: Yeah. So this one Little Goat, it's a, yeah, it's a graphic novel.

For young readers, whatever that means. It's for whatever reader you want. Anybody who knows how to read basically it is a book about a family who's at their Passover Seder, and they cannot find the AFI Komen, which is this piece of matzo that's hidden during the meal. And that's needed to end this ceremony of the Seder.

And because no one can find this AFI Komen, the Seder cannot end. And so this family is trapped at the Seder for six months. Which for anyone who's been to like, a long boring Seder, like it's a familiar feeling. There's and also you could tell, I started thinking about this idea during Covid.

Yeah. So the family's trapped at this never ending Seder. And six months in there's a knock on the door and they're like, oh, maybe it's Elijah the prophet who's, you know this, legendary idea that this, prophet shows up at the end of the Seder and, but they're like, it can't be the Elijah, the prophet. 'cause we're not up to that part of the Seder yet. The word Seder means order. There's, and it's no, it can't be. And so the oldest child goes to answer the door, and it's a talking goat who says, I'm the scapegoat. I am the reason for everyone's problems. And he says, I can help you find your AFI covid.

I think I know where it is. And then the kid's great, where is it? And then the goat says no, not where, when. And then he says, over the past six months while you've been sitting at this never ending Seder, thousands of years of previous seders have accumulated underneath your Seder. And you now have to travel down into those previous Seders to find this missing piece of matza and bring your Seder to an end.

And yeah, so as you said, it becomes a journey through, it starts as a journey through his family's history. And it continues as a journey through Jewish history, which is essentially also his family's history. Until you get to the the night before the exodus at the very end. 

Zibby: My gosh. It was so cool, and even like acknowledging the bravery of his great-grandmother and the Warsaw Ghetto and like all the times, passovers weren't always so easy, right? Because of course, the whole story is that it is not easy. I recently had rabbi Raphael Shore on this podcast, and he was talking again, just like you, like at Sinai, like we were all given how to behave. We were all like not just one person. And that is why we all go into the world trying to do good and all these things, and it's the mandate.

It's like in our DNA and that's how we've ended up here, even though they're always like in your other book, there're always forces against us. 

Dara: Yes. And this is, it's a story of you, yes. The great grandmother in the war. So ghetto was a moment of bravery, but there. All moments of bravery.

Zibby: Yes. 

Dara: Because that's, and sometimes it's, in these dramatic historical circumstances, sometimes it's, personal choices. 

Zibby: Yep. 

Dara: And, all of us are, the only reason that we are still Jews today, those of us who are participating in this tradition, is because of these courageous choices that everybody before us made.

Even in the best of circumstances, this was a counter-cultural choice for sure. I. And anybody who's raised raising Jewish children know that this is, it's an enormous amount of effort to maintain this tradition. Even in, whatever version of that, what, whatever version of that tradition, it looks like it's a counter-cultural practice.

And yeah, it's always a matter of bravery and also the Passover story is actually really scary. Yes, it's a really scary story and it's very, this is also very counter-cultural now. Where it's this is a really scary story. And not only are we like not giving people trigger warnings, like the children are like the focus of this idea and this story.

Yes. And though, and that I think is also, I think, very 

Zibby: empowering. The literal depiction of the firstborn child and the lamb blood and all of that, and some of the skeletons and you know all this. It's okay. Yeah. This is not like a sweet bedtime story. 

Dara: Oh no, it is. 

Zibby: It's supposed to always be a wake up call.

Like we can never forget. We can never, we have to retell it over and over, and there are reasons why. And then of course things play out today and we at least have the context for it, right? Like we know. 

Dara: Yeah. 

Zibby: Maybe everybody else doesn't know. And as we are seeing in culture today, people don't totally get the whole story or understand, but we all know.

It's in us. It's like part of the mandate is to know and learn and repeat. 

Dara: It's part of the story, right? 

Zibby: Yeah. 

Dara: It's part of the story. And this is. There's another part of the Passover liturgy in the HA where it says, you know that in every generation, people have risen up to destroy us, to destroy the nation of Israel.

And God always saves us from their hands. That's obviously, that's a religious frame for this idea, but there's this. There's a sense in which this tradition is not just about the past, but about preparing you. It's about preparing you for living in this countercultural civilization.

Zibby: It's funny to think of it as countercultural and like for me it's just cultural. 

Dara: But it's I think this is true for, this is what. Jewish civilization is, this is an ancient civiliz. This is an ancient near Eastern civilization. There are lots of ancient near Eastern civilizations.

And the radical ideas of this are countercultural, right? The radical idea of monotheism, right? Refusal to bow to idols. We think of that today as like this. Again, it's oh, it's a spiritual, it's a religious thing. This is a political movement in the ancient Near East where all these other cultures in the ancient East had lots of gods, and one of the gods is the dictator, right?

That's what the Passover story is about, is the Pharaoh thinks that he's a God, right? All of these plagues and things are about the, the Pharaoh being defeated and revealed to not be a God. That is the idea of that. And when the Jews in the Ancient East said that they don't bow to idols, what they meant was that they don't bow to tyrant.

Because that's what quote other gods were in that time. And that's when, and so this has always been this sort of anti tyrannical movement, which is gonna piss off tyrants. And that has always been true. So when I say counterculture, this is a culture that is not conforming to whether it's an empire or a whatever, just a dominant society that's goes to that dominant society and says, no thanks.

That is a very radical thing to do and it is never gonna make you popular, but it is this ultimate expression of integrity and freedom and I, to me, that's what this the Passover story really is about, is that the integrity and how to live a life of integrity and freedom and how to teach that to your children.

Zibby: No, you're absolutely right. I feel like this is a good. Hug goddess, hug God a plus. This should be at every seat at Passover, and we'll open up conversations, I feel in a different way for people's families to connect and just another way into it that feels at once personal and universal.

Dara: Yes. And I think also, as you said, like it's also like it's a lot of fun. 

Zibby: Yes. 

Dara: Here I'm sitting here talking about integrity and freedom, as you said, like this is a book where you don't meet Freud, but you meet Freud's mom. And she's he never calls. I know.

Zibby: It's, the whole thing is hilarious when you're like the tired mom. And I'm like, feel seen? Thank you for that. Because I like flash back to kids, small kids and other seders and I'm like, oh my gosh. Everyone is a character and yes. 

Dara: And those are like their names. There's the exhausted mom, there's the opinionated aunt who's mom and slavery is corporate Greek.

Zibby: Totally. Oh my gosh. So funny. And how did you come to work with Theo Ellsworth on this? 

Dara: Oh my God. So this was, I feel so fortunate to have, be working with him. This was an idea that, I had this idea at one point and then backburnered it didn't really think about it.

And then I was on a road trip with my family. We stopped in a comic bookshop and my kids came out with our arm loads of all these indie comics, including a really thick indie comic by Theo Ellsworth called Capacity. And they were fighting over this book. It was like, oh, it's my turn for it. No, you already had it.

And it was like, they could not get enough of this book. And I was like, what is this book that you guys bought? I don't know anything about comics. This is not my world. And I borrowed it from them at one point just to be like, what are you all obsessed with? I was just enchanted by his artwork.

First of all, hilarious. And he does these things where he makes these abstract ideas, really literal. I remember on a page in that book where it was called Walking Around with a yelling Brain, and it was like this man who had his his head was like zipped open and there was this like, other man who was popping out of his head and it was like, then that man had another zipper on his head.

It was just like really interesting and fun and incredibly detailed and really beautiful and haunting and I just. I just remember thinking like when I saw that, I was like, oh my God, I see how this idea that I have could work. And I cold emailed him. I'm thinking, I'm like, your name is Theo Ellsworth.

You live in Missoula, Montana. You're probably not Jewish. I'm like, okay, I'm gonna, have I have this. I wrote to him, I'm like, hi, I love your work. I'm a writer. I have this idea. It's a little hard to explain. Deep breath. And he was totally game, just so fantastic. Came up with all kinds of things I would never have thought of.

He just, I, it was, working with him was just amazing. He did a fantastic job and yeah, he's an amazing artist. 

Zibby: Wow. Congratulations. It's very cool and fun and entertaining, but so much more than that. So I feel like it fits right in the graphic novel trend, with kids who like can't even be bothered to read novels anymore.

So yeah. How cool. Just, it's so nice to have a different way to, to think about things after so long. And just to touch on, People Love Dead Jews. You're probably so tired of talking about it. I was struck, I read part of it. Over the break when I was in California. And then in reviewing part of it today, there's a whole scene where you're driving through the Palisades, which gave me like goosebumps, right?

You're on a multi drive. 

Dara: Oh my God, yes. 

Zibby: All of that. In fact, then I went on Instagram to see like what happened to those houses that you mentioned. The now I can't remember the name, but now I'm following them, but, 

Dara: Oh, Aurora and, yeah. 

Zibby: Yeah. But. You talk about that in the context of how there was this one man who was such a helper and his whole story, Frederick 

Dara: Oh, oh and Fry.

Sorry. Yes. He one of the only Americans, as we used to call Righteous Gentiles. Who's one of the only Americans 

Zibby: Yes. 

Dara: Who was involved in rescuing people from Nazi persecution. 

Zibby: Yeah. And how he basically perpetuated this artistic and literary community. Relocated to California and 

Dara: Yes.

Zibby: Yet, why is he not known so publicly? There's so many people who have helped and so many people who have heard, but let's broadcast that story. I'm like, where's the documentary on this guy? 

Dara: There's been some things actually in that. There was, since the book came out, there was, somebody made a Netflix series actually about him.

Zibby: Oh. Oh my gosh. Okay. Now I can go watch that. 

Dara: I wish. I'm embarrassed to say I haven't seen, but yeah. 

Zibby: Okay. All right. Tell me about when you wrote that book. It was obviously a couple years ago, you were responding still to the synagogue massacre. Now things have gotten arguably worse, but of course I wouldn't call that it's all relative.

It's all relative. And you said in the book, you've become this reluctant op-ed person about all of this stuff, and you didn't necessarily want to, but you're like, at least I know my history and I might as well be the person. So talk about it how you've emerged as this source and how your perspective on everything is so important and original and all of that.

Dara: Oh God. So yeah, so People Love Dead Jews, which, yeah, I still can't believe my publisher will let you keep that title. People Love Dead Jews. It's a book about, it's about the role that dead Jews play in non-Jewish society. I hadn't even really thought about it as a book about antisemitism, but the, what this phrase means essentially is that most non-Jewish societies only find Jews acceptable when Jews are powerless.

Whether that means politically impotent or dead. And I, I started thinking about this, you know about Yes. Like in 2018, I was asked by Smithsonian Magazine to write a long piece for them about Aunt Frank and I was dreading that assignment and I remember thinking like, why don't I wanna do this?

And I remember this news story that I had read about something that happened at the Anne Frank Museum in Amsterdam, where there was a young Jewish man working at that museum. The museum wouldn't let him wear his yamaka to work. They made him hide it under a baseball hat. And he appealed the decision to the board of the museum.

The board of the museum deliberated for six months. And then let him wear his YaMma code to work. And I'm like, six months long time for the Anne Frank Museum to ponder whether or not it was a good idea to force a Jew into hiding. And I'm like and then I found out something even similar had happened six months earlier with the museum's audio guide display, where they have, 15 languages to the audio guide.

It says, English, there's a British flag. Fran say there's a French flag. And then you get to Hebrew. No flag. No flag. They've since fixed these things, but I'm like, these are PR mishaps, but they're not mistakes. And that was this where I got this, the first line of that essay is people love dead Jews, living Jews not so much.

But I've now and the refined idea of this is that yes, Jews are only acceptable when they're powerless, when they're politically impotent or when they're dead. And I, yes, I published this book in 2021. And I just thought this was like, a sort of a detour from my fiction. I had published five novels before this and I was like, okay, I'm gonna just get this outta my system.

This book has eaten my life. And since this book came out, I mean it was like just inundated with, first of all, Jewish readers who were all coming to me with their horror stories. I'm like, I'm not a therapist, I don't even know what I can possibly do for you.

And, realized from that, like how much huge this problem was than I ever thought it was. And also being, inundated with non-Jewish readers who were all, yes I get hate mail and all that, but like non-Jewish readers who are basically saying, wow, I had no idea. How can I help?

And, so this book made me into this national voice on this issue. And then, after October 7th. And I should say already was in, I was like this book term. I mean I was, they call, I was one of the people who was contributing to the, in the Biden administration to this the, whatever their national plan was to combat antisemitism.

Which I have to say, I don't know that anyone ever did anything with this plan. But I wrote, I don't know, five or six patients of that plan. I was like involved. A lot of things that, a person who just wrote a book, comic book about a talking goat you would not expect to be involved in, and then that just exploded after October 7th.

In terms of what happened to me after that, the first thing that happened was I was asked to, and I partic, I participated in this antisemitism advisory group to the now former president of Harvard who did not take our advice unfortunately. And it yeah, went really badly. In fact, it went so badly that then I, I got hold into Congress to testify about it. So I'm like, now part of this in, I was part of this congressional investigation. I now have, people just asking me constantly about this. And I, I'm pub doing public speaking all the time about this topic in many audiences. And what I just started noticing was like, the way I'm talking about this is very different from other people because it would often happen, it happened just this week at another college.

I speak at these college campuses and there'll be people who show up in their kafi and they start, heckling me, like asking hostile questions. And I just answer the questions and then they say, wow, I never thought about it that way. Thank you. And then they come to me afterwards, they're like, this was really interesting.

Where can I go to learn more? And then I would have like non-Jewish readers at these events coming to me being like, wow, what you just said, this was amazing. Can I, can you come speak to my school? Can you come speak to my teacher's union? Can you? And I was just like, n no, because like I'm, me and I, like I get, I got a plane to go to Phoenix tomorrow and I don't have a staff and this is just I'm.

I'm a novelist whose next book is about a talking goat, right? This is no, I'm not like and so what I now actually have done is I've started a nonprofit to address this issue and to scale what I've been doing in terms of changing this conversation. And it's called Mosaic Persuasion.

And the goal is to educate the broader American public about who Jews are because that's what I saw was completely missing. It's there are all these places where it's like you have, are required to learn about the Holocaust in school. You are not required to learn who Jews are that we've outsourced to TikTok.

So you know, this is like a broader education problem. 'cause I don't think that there's any possibility of. And combating it. You can't even understand what antisemitism is without understanding Jewish civilization because it does have to do with this idea of opposition to tyranny. And I now have this sort of, I have a whole framework for it, because what I realized is the whole way that people are addressing this problem is on the anti-Semitic terms of the dominant culture.

And that once you disrupt that frame, suddenly the whole conversation changes and people understand what you're talking about. And. See the problem so we're starting this in K to 12. We have like workshops for teachers and stuff. If any of your listeners are educators or involved in whether it's in school or museums or interfaith groups or social media channels, we are building this out.

But yeah, we're very new. Don't even have a website yet, but you can contact me through my website@darrowhorn.com if you're interested in this initiative. Yeah. 

Zibby: Wow, that is super excited. I'll contact you through your website. Yes, I am interested. I That is great. Clearly what we're doing now is not working.

So by shifting.. 

Dara: Yeah. 

Zibby: Framework, hopefully we have more success and 

Dara: Yes. And I think, and because I think that this, this is really a problem that is the reason, and it's a larger problem in our society because it's about the limits of living in a pluralistic democracy. It's like this test case for what does it mean to live with people who don't all agree?

And obviously this is a broader problem in American culture with the way this culture is polarized and being able to be in conversation with people who are coming from a lot of different places and who don't agree with each other. And that is like something that Jewish tradition offers a masterclass in that.

Zibby: Wow. Okay. I am I was already so impressed with you, but just even getting to listen to you, I feel like I'm taking my own masterclass here. I feel like you should be teaching. You must teach, right? You must teach. 

Dara: I have in the past, as I said, like this is my, this is why, like I need to figure out how to scale what I'm doing.

Because right now it's I have taught in universities and things in the past courses and. But I teach courses in Yiddish and Hebrew literature. That's actually what my academic work is, but, need to be able to scale what I'm doing. Yeah. 

Zibby: Wow. Okay, let's keep talking.

Not now, but offline. I wanna keep talking about what you're doing. 

Dara: Yes. 

Zibby: And congratulations on One Little Goat. Totally enjoyed it. We'll be sending it to everybody in my family, extended family for way more fun. 

Dara: Way more fun than people of that. 

Zibby: Yes. Yeah. A nice sort of counterbalance. So thank you d This was really great.

Thanks for talking. 

Dara: Yeah, thank you so much for. 

Zibby: Of course. Okay. Bye. To be continued. Bye-bye.