Sunday, May 23, 2010

Is Titusville A "Militant Settlement"?

Remember Harold Bloom's takedown of British literary anti-semitism/antizionism?

Well, a good few people were upset.

Here are some letters (and here, too).

What interested me in this letter was the address.

Is it real?

To the Editor:
So Shakespeare writes about a nasty moneylender who is Jewish. (Many moneylenders in Shakespeare’s time were Jews.) Dickens writes about a nasty thief who is Jewish. (Many thieves in Dickens’s time were Jews.) Julius and Bloom conclude Shakespeare and Dickens are anti-Semitic. Does this mean one cannot write a novel about a nasty person who is Jewish without being accused of anti-Semitism? Does anybody mind if we write about nasty drug dealers who are Christians? The question is absurd. How sad it should be raised, both for literature and for humanity.

CAROLINE SEEBOHM
Titusville, N.J.



It is:


Titusville is an unincorporated area located within Hopewell Township, in Mercer County, New Jersey, United States. The area includes a post office with its own ZIP code (08560), a small village of homes, and a large park dedicated to George Washington's crossing of the Delaware River in 1776...Each year on Christmas Day, General George Washington's crossing of the Delaware River is commemorated at Washington Crossing State Park, which lies at the south end of Titusville. The annual reenactment depicts General Washington's December 25, 1776 river crossing and the attack on the Hessian troops in Trenton, which was one of the key battles of the American Revolutionary War. Re-enactors assemble on the Pennsylvania side of the river, where their commander reads Thomas Paine's immortal pamphlet, "The American Crisis." The soldiers then climb into boats and cross the river, though the crossing is often canceled due to weather and speed of river.



So, is it a settlement?

Do its inhabitants celebrate militarism?



P.S.

Menachem Begin on antisemitism, January 1952:

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