ABSTRACT
Jews have long objected to the Mormon practice of "vicariously" converting their deceased ancestors, especially those who perished in the Holocaust, to the Mormon faith, a practice that has seemed to them more brazenly dogmatic than the worst excesses of the Inquisition. Barbara Kay was alluding to two unusually foul volleys of fire and vitriol shot in the direction of Israel and her Jewish supporters by Canadian Jewish women, Jennifer Peto and Judy Rebick. Like most dead people, Peto's grandmother is vulnerable to assaults on her memory by an unscrupulous and ruthless grandchild. The line of succession among the anti-Zionist converters of their deceased grandmothers may, however, be traced a bit farther back than Kay's Canadians, to a public intellectual of far greater weight, moment, literacy, and prominence than either Rebick or Peto: England's Alain De Botton. In addition to being a writer, De Botton is the founder of an institution in central London called "The School of Life".
