Incident At Vichy

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personnel manager with a large business enterprise which refuses to hire Jews. As an American Gentile, he himself has never questioned the soundness of this policy, having simply internalized the Gentile prejudices of anti-Semitism. Unfortunately he himself, after buying eyeglasses because of his failing sight, becomes an object of persecution. He looks Jewish, and is unmoved from the front office. He then feels obliged to resign. His marriage to a woman who is similarly mistaken for a Jew merely exacerbates his situation. At her behest, he rises to secure immunity by embracing Gentile prejudices, but is rejected. Assaulted by a group of right-wing thugs, he finds himself inspired by the resistance of his Jewish neighbor Finkelstein. Although his anti-Semitic wife tries to convince his persecutors of his real identity, Newsman now takes a stand by refusing to escape. Towards the end of the novel, he no longer challenges the police�s assumption about his Jewish identity. Persecution ...

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which religion or custom regards as forbidden, not to be touched, spoken of, etc.� The Encyclopaedia Britannica (Micropaedia Ready Reference and Index, x) among other things, traces the origin of the word taboo of particular relevance is the allusion to the 18th century usage of taboo in religion, when the word became �equated with the sacred, perceived ambivalently as both holy and dangerous, or pure and impure.� The Micropaedia goes further to discuss that inherent in the �sacred� is the notion of �a negative, separate, exclusive power, prohibited to man, which causes death or pollution if man comes in contact with it.�

Following the above definitions, it is evident that in Focus ...

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