TWO JEWISH NOVELS.* Kam, Eam, FRANZOS is, like Sacher-Masoch, to
whose novels we have before drawn attention, half German, half Slay. And what Sacher-Masoch is to the Galician Pole, Franzos endeavours to be to the Ruthenian or Little Russian. In writing of Slavonic life, he is naturally led to write of the Jews, who play so large a part among these nationalities. The stories before us to-day deal entirely with this oppressed people, and are, as the author himself admits, by no means free from an ulterior aim. But he has very sincerely and successfully striven to prevent this from interfering with the character of his tales as works of art. He has painted the Polish Jews neither better nor worse than they are ; he has written of them as he knows them. His books propose neither to glorify nor to vilify the Judaism of Eastern Europe; he merely wishes to draw attention to the gloom that hangs over this people, and, if possible, to aid in alleviating their miseries. It has been said, " Every country has the Jews that it deserves !" and Franzos endeavours to show that it is not the fault, or, at least, not wholly the fault, of the Polish Jews, if they are less cultured than their co-religionists in England, Germany, and France.
The Jews of Barnow are a series of tales, of which the scene is laid exclusively in the Jewish quarter of a small town in Podolia. Though separate stories, the same persons reappear; and they are thus a connected whole, bringing before our eyes a very vivid picture of life in a Jewish-Polish community. Our author has never lost sight of the fact that he is writing for Westerns, to whom the comprehension of many of the conditions and cir- cumstances portrayed must be difficult, and wherever it has been possible he has explained these. But it has not always been possible, and to readers totally unacquainted with Jewish life, some things must remain obscure. This, however, need not detract from their interest in the stories. They cannot fail to perceive that it is a very tense, earnest life into which they here obtain a glimpse, and one that, for all its often fanatical narrow- mindedness, is at its root more noble and high-souled than many Christians know or imagine. It is a strange, sombre world that we encounter within the Ghetto gates, engrossed within itself, cut off from all outside influences, almost from all communication. Only the men, in their capacity as pedlars or petty merchants, come into contact with their Christian neigh- bours ; and even then only to discuss business, and to scorn one another when their bargains are concluded. For the Jew scorns the Christian and hates him as cordially as the Christian hates the Jew. Both meet as enemies, and for a Jewish woman to love a Christian, or a Christian a Jew, is regarded as a 4. Die Judea von Darnels. Von K. E. Franzos. Leipzig : Dunker and Humbles. 1880.
Yacht(' ron Parma. Von K. E. Freezes. Leipzig Duneker and Humblol. 1880•
terrible misfortune. And yet the thing occurs at times, and leads, in the case of the Jews, to excommunication and entire breach with the tribe. In the case of the Christians, it is merely a social outlawry, rarely maintained, though the Jewish extraction is a stigma never forgotten. A piteous picture of this kind is drawn by Franzos in Nadi, dent Hoheren, Gesetz. Into a Jewish marriage no idea of love is allowed to enter. Marriages are arranged by the parents or by an agent, who makes it his business to bring about unions, and often the young people do not see each other until their wedding-day. For a Jewish maiden to remain unmarried after she is eighteen, for a man after he is twenty-five, or when married to be child- less, is regarded by the stricter and the Eastern Jews as a brand and a curse. The girls at Barnow received little education ; they could sometimes speak German as well as Polish, but this was held as an accomplishment ; reading and writing were re- 'garded as needless luxuries. " If a Jew girl can pray," say these dogmatic people, " she needs no more to be good and happy." The women are brought up to regard marriage as an inevitable condition, and are prepared to accept the suitor whom their parents choose. A few who have come in contact with Christians may speculate as to the nature of that "love " of which these people speak so much, and which they seem to regard as a need- ful element in marriage. But if they inquire further, they are told by their parents that this is a Christian fashion, which a -child of Israel will do well to eschew. All their passion is con- centrated upon their God and the Law. A strange people, indeed ! The same nation that penned the Song of Solomon, that most passionate of love-poems, and conceived the sweet idyl of Ruth, has made marriage a matter of barter and specu- lation, a means of serving God and Mammon at the same time, acquiring money and obeying the Law by propagating the seed of Jacob. Yet as a rule, these marriages turn out well, far better than many a Christian one founded upon love. The sense of duty, of family affection, is developed with intense strength in the Hebrew mind, and hence tra gedies such as that finely told in the above-named story rarely occur. Here the young wife, after her marriage, learns to know love, and her husband, of his own free-will, divorces her and resigns her to the Christian, to ex- piate the faults of their fathers, who brought them together. He has been out in the world, and learnt that there are higher laws than those enforced by the Rabbis. He is happy in Saving done, as he fancies, a good action, she in her love.
But another story of the same kind does not end so well. Cursed and disowned by a father who adored her, abandoned by her lover, another maiden of Barnow dies of hunger on the very threshold of her rich parent, who cannot, even in her misery, forgive her defection from the Law. " The Shylock of Barnow" is the name of the story, for Shylock is the nick- name that has been given to this rich, deluded father.
Notwithstanding the narrow, stiff-necked, and obdurate trait of the Jewish people which the story illustrates, it also shows that this cruel folly has a substratum of fine feeling, which has only grown thus perverted by centuries of persecution and re-. pression. The same applies to their rigid Sabbatarianism, practised to a fault, to childish punctiliousness, but of which both the results and the fundamental idea are fine. The de- scription of such aJewish Sabbath, when even the most avaricious, the vilest of the people becomes, for the space of one day, a peace-loving, God-fearing, ascetic, and moral being, showing how its subtle influences, from their frequent recurrence, leaven the whole man, even at his worst, is:finely given in Franzos' pages. Another powerful and painfully interesting tale is " Das Kind der Siihue." There we learn to see the Jews great reverence for the majesty of Death, their tender care of " The Good Place," as this people, persecuted and weary of life, name God's Acre.
And the Jews have to suffer persecutions not only from the Christians. They suffer almost as much from the fanaticism of their own people, from the oppression of the Rabbis if they venture to emancipate themselves an iota, or in any way to attempt to adapt themselves to the changed conditions of the times. The longer story, Moschko of Parma, is the history of such a persecution from within. Moschko, or llifoses, is the son of a very poor tailor, and synagogue servant, who has conceived a fancy for a military life. He has little wit, but a robust frame and brawny arms, and has always loved fighting, so that in the Ghetto it became a common saying, "He is like a Christian boy, although he is—a Jew." For Jewish boys are cowardly, and slink away from fight. For centuries past this not unfounded charge of cowardliness has been flung at the Jews. Yet, in the days of the Old Testament they were mighty warriors, and Judas Maccabxus can have been no despicable soldier, but of late, unless the rumour be well founded that Napoleon's General, Massena, was of Jewish extraction, his name being in truth Manasseh, they have not distinguished themselves in this department. To be a soldier, to live among Christians, and be forced to eat their food and thus pollute one- self, to be unable to hold the Jewish festivals and to work on the Sabbath, is regarded as the most terrible and awful curse that can fall upon a child of Israel. In Barnow immense sums were spent to bribe the recruiting-officers when the time of conscription came round,—the poorest, the most avaricious, would denude himself to save his children from such a calamity ; for after his return, though the fault was not his own, the recruit can no longer be regarded as one of the Congregation. Therefore, that a Jewish child should deliberately, of his own free-will, desire to enter this profession, was unheard of, monstrous, impossible. Money-dealing, peddling, commerce, were legitimate modes of earning a livelihood, but who had heard of a child of Israel earning his money otherwise? But Moses persisted that he had no head for trade, but had strong arms, and desired to use them. His resolve aroused quite a tumult in the community. After a stormy meeting of the Rabbis and Elders to discuss this unnatural event, a compro- mise was arrived at ; he was to be allowed to learn a handicraft, to become a smith. Unfortunately, this had also to be under a Christian master, for want of a Jewish craftsman ; and this resolution was, therefore, disapproved by the stricter among the brethren. Their prognostications were not unverified. Moses, thrown among Christians, acquired new and wider ideas, and, though he kept the Sabbath scrupulously, and refused to eat with his fellow-workmen, he gradually grew less of a Jew at heart. Then a Christian girl fell in love with him, and he with her. Neither dared avow their passion to the world ; but it burned none the less fiercely that it burned in secret. At last, Moses' darling wish, that the conscription should fall to his lot, was fulfilled, at the very moment when he would have chosen to remain near his love. At this point a long break occurs in the story. We do not witness Moses' military life ; the narrative is not resumed until twenty years after when he returns as a dis- charged soldier to Barnow, crippled, broken in health and spirits. His people spurn him, he has become a renegade in their eyes ; the Christian hospitals reject him, and refer him to the Jewish charities. Bandied and driven from pillar to post, his own son, who does not, however, know his father, takes compassion upon him, attracted to him solely for love of his tales of military life. In the arms of this son he soon after dies, puzzled, perplexed where charity, where true faith, reside. It is a melancholy life-history, told with vigour. Moschko throughout his whole life suffered from the accidents of his birth. Had he read Heine, he would have quoted from the " Baths of Lucca,"—" I do not wish my worst enemy the old. Jewish faith. It leads to nothing but shame and disgrace. I tell you it is not a religion at all, it is a misfortune."
And what is the lesson that Franzos would teach by his books ? It is this,—that the Jews themselves must assist in their own emancipation. Their strong, firm faith, which they have preserved through centuries, has been the helmet that has saved them from the blows that were struck at their heads, but which has now become pressed down too deeply over their eyes. They must raise it,—must open their eyes, and recognise that conditions have changed, and that the dawn of a new and brighter day is kindling in the horizon. They, as well as their Christian persecutors, must root foolish prejudices and enmity out of their hearts,—only thus can a mutual understanding be arrived at, real liberty be obtained. Persecution from within as well as from without must be relaxed, the spirit of the Law must be regarded, not merely and only its dead-letter. Their Western brethren, who have long ago obeyed these injunc- tions, have flourished. If the Eastern Jews would not be crushed out of existence, or left behind, they too must regard them.
Franzos has been fortunate in working upon a new and un- exhausted. soil. His books are full of striking situations, of psy- chological and moral combinations, and possess an additional attraction, in the shape of their novel setting. The longer story is, rerhaps, a trifle unwieldy in construction, but this very want of artistic shaping is scarcely -a fault in so original a theme.
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