"The pub bookshelf in #Painswick, #England, was stocked with #books bound in handsome jewel tones. It seemed charming and innocuous, until I spotted a 1934 hardback with the alarmingly simple title of #TwelveJews.

Curious, I opened it.

“The quarrel between the #Jews and the rest of civilisation has been kept alive by two forces: one, the peculiar character of the Jews, and the other, the antipathy of #Christian or non-#Jewish society,” the introduction read. “The one has induced the other.”

Um, what?

As disturbing as that claim was — it’s such a pity that Jews are too weird for Christian society to tolerate! — I found it even more troubling that the #author, #HectorBolitho, who conceived of and edited the #essay collection, had obviously written with a profound wish to defend Jews against prejudice. He hoped the #book would help ameliorate the long quarrel he identified, especially in light of the already unfolding “enforced exodus of the Jews from #Germany.”

https://forward.com/forward-newsletters/looking-forward/827044/twelve-jews-hector-bolitho/