[…] What Franzos shows markedly in his "Jews of Barnow" is that barrier which
Jews throw around their household. The seclusion of the family, so purely
Oriental in its character, is something which the Polish rabbi takes particular
pains to teach. This hiding, of what is the finest trait the Jew possesses,
that love and peace which dwell in his home, that reverence which children have
for their parents, that sacrifice of everything to his affections, because it
never is known, has tended more than anything else to alienate the Jew from his
neighbor. Among the ultra-orthodox Jews, whether they live in Odessa, Cracow,
Frankfort, London, or New York, their doors are inhospitably closed to those of
another belief. Has there been transmitted some instinct engendered by
mistrust? […]
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All books by Karl Emil Franzos
