Professor Flora Cassen is a Belgian-born historian. Specializing in European Jewish history, her recent work has expanded into the analysis of contemporary antisemitism. In her new book, Stained Glass, she traces the history of Jew hatred in Europe across the centuries. She does so in a most unusual and agreeable way.

Each year, I begin our Pesach preparations the same way. I take the keys to my grandmother’s apartment, home to the magical seders of my childhood, and a Pesach spoon from her mother, whose Yiddish name I share, and rest them on the window ledge in our kitchen.