This is an I-Heart podcast.

This is Lee Habib with our American Stories, the show where America is the star and the American

people.

Up next, you're going to hear from Darrah Horn.

She gave a commencement speech to the West Point graduates who happened to be Jewish in

2023, and I came across this from a friend, and the story came to life.

Here's Darron, who she is, and how she came to write this speech.

My name is Darah Horn, and I'm a writer. I've published six books.

My first five books were novels that all deal very deeply with Jewish history, culture, belief, texts, but incorporate those, you know, sort of ancient stories into modern contexts. And my most recent book is a nonfiction book with the rather provocative title, People Love Dead Jews.

It's a collection of essays about the role that Jews play in a non-Jewish society.

And I also have a spinoff podcast from this book called Adventures with Dead Jews

that tells a bunch of stories that aren't in the book because it's a bottomless topic,

the role that Jews play in a non-Jewish society. And so, and I, you know, I tend to approach

these things with a little bit of an off-kilter kind of tone, as you can sort of maybe tell

by the title. So the invitation to West Point, though, was quite unexpected. What happened was

there was a cadet there, which is, you know, undergraduates that are called cadets. There was a cadet there named Jacob Foster, and he was listening to my podcast and really enjoyed it. And then went and read my book, People Love Dead Jews, and then approached the Jewish chaplain at West Point and asked if I could be invited

to be their baccalaureate speaker at the Jewish baccalaureate service as part of their commencement

at West Point.

And I got this invitation.

I was very honored, but also very intimidated because I thought, you know, people

love dead Jews.

Not really a great fit for commencement

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