270
PARTISAN REVIE,«
taking is the ritualistic confirmation of this mysterious compact. The
outsider can take snuff and grin, but that does not make him privy to
the Jews ' secret because the ritual is only incidental to that secret as the
Jewish Law is only incidental to the real content of Judaism.
The notion that the Jews do not take seriously the moral content
of their texts, that there is a disparity between the Jewish Law and the
propensities of the Jewish people, appears elsewhere in Pound's
writings. In his pamphlet "What is Money For? " he states:
At this point, and to prevent the dragging of red herrings, I wish to
distinguish between prejudice against the Jew as such and the
suggestion that the Jew should face his own problem.
DOES he in his individual case wish to observe the law of Moses?
Does he propose
to
continue to rob other men by usury mechanism
while wishing
to
be
considered a 'neighbor?'
Pound refers to the fact that the Hebrew Scriptures expressly forbid
usury. But an ominous note creeps in when Pound suggests that usury
is the Jew's "own problem." The Jews seem to be afflicted with an
inability to follow their own law as a racial characteristic. This
"problem" 'becomes more serious in Canto XXII where not taking the
Scriptures seriously has become incorporated into the practice of
Judaism.
We should note, however, that Clark Emery felt the description of
the Jews in Canto XXII to
be
favorable: "In Canto XXII Pound
describes the Jews in the synagogue and finds them to be characterized
by two of his favorite virtues,
hilaritas
and
humanitas."
But to look
upon this passage as a quaint description of Jewish mirth and good
fellowship is to ignore, somewhat, its context. Immediately preceding
the description of the synagogue Pound gives us a bleak little confron–
tation between fools and knaves played by tourists and guides respec–
tively. Yusuf, the Jew, is the principal knave:
And Yusuf said: Woat, he iss all thru Eetaly
An' ee is nevair been stuck, ee iss a liar.
W'en I goa to some forain 's country
I am stuck.
W'en yeou goa to some forain 's country
You moss
be
stuck; W'en they come 'ere I steek thaim . (22/ 104)
The description of the synagogue continues in this vein as the naive
tourist-observer is taken in by a quaint scene filled with ominous,
ironic undertones.
We stated earlier that anti-Semitism is a rationalized doctrine and
