Dancing Hora with Evil Puppets
From the essay
I am trying to formulate a chain of thoughts and images that came to me after the Israel Day Parade in New York City—thoughts about hatred, absurdity, memory, humor, and the strange power of making evil ridiculous. A person does not come, and a puppet appears in his place. A cardboard presence fills the space left by a real absence. Maybe ridicule is not a substitute for moral clarity, but it can sometimes protect moral clarity from becoming stiff and joyless. The laughter is not empty. It comes from memory. It comes from knowing what hatred can do when nobody interrupts it early enough.