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The Trouble With Apu

 Thinking about Apu, I'm led to recall Charles Dickens. Dickens invented Fagin, a famously antisemitic caricature in "Oliver Twist." Then, confronted with the truth of what he had made, Dickens did a 180. It's widely believed that Riah--the saintly Jewish character in Dickens's final novel--is a kind of "apology" for Fagin.

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