Re Anti-Semitism and Insanity--
 
I defer to Sartre on this issue: anti-semitism as a passion.  In Pound's
case, his anti-semitism draws on medieval European ("Christian" notions of
the Jew as idolatrous poison) varieties, modern middle-European varieties
(Jew as vermin or virus), as well as good old American varities (Jew as
barbarian).
 
Wilhelm gives us much of what we need to know about the kinds of
intolerance found in the suburbs of Philadelphia around the turn of the
century.  We might also consider that that the mission in which Pound's
father worked so hard at coverting Italian immigrants to Presbytyrians was
in the same neighborhood as one of the Jewish settlement houses working so
hard to Americanize Jewish immigrants--at one point, Pound speaks of the
two institutions as competitors (and isn't DuBois studying Blacks in
Philadelphia in 1999?).
 
Moreover, when Homer Pound moved into the city to be closer to his
missionary work, he rented the house to a Dr. Hackenburg--I believe this
was the same Dr. Hackenburg who was the leader of the local Jewish medical
society and the same figure who led a rally in the early 1880s arguing that
Philadelphians ought to invite victims of Russian pogroms to settle in
Philadelphia.  So a Jew (I think) moved into the Pound house at a time
when the taboo against such practices was very strong in suburban
Philadelphia.
 
My point is that Pound's involvement in Judaism was part of his family
history--any consideration of the ideological and textual aspects of Pound's
anti-semitism has to consider that (Pound knew that his namesake was
largely responsible for instituting Torah and writing and written law in
general into Jewish life after the return from exile in Babylon).
 
A look at the anti-semitic aspects of the political parties about which
Pound was so passionate at such a young age is also instructive.
 
That's all for now--as the man says, get the point across and then stop.
 
Jonathan Gill
Columbia University