Free Ring of Fire III by Eric Flint

Jewish so he remained silent.
    “Yes, Mother?” the older girl, named Sibylla, said.
    It took a certain kind of faith to believe that there was a real person talking back. Shabbethai hunched under the drone of Blaise’s idle translation of almost everything being said in the room. It had been a rough and tumble game of stick ball. The smooth feel of the ball, made out of something called rubber and called a Pinkie, had almost meant that he had not thrown it in time for an out.
    English was a curious language.
    Shabbethai was curious about how the phone worked. He was curious about why the Jews of Deborah looked at him funny. He was curious about whether the French boy could understand Greek. Look where that curiosity had left him.
    The boy named Gabriel, the one with the smile Shabbethai didn’t want to see, asked if he was Jewish and Shabbethai said yes because lying never solved a problem and Blaise had translated his answer and now...
    “Joseph, Mom wants me to make dinner,” Sibylla stated very firmly to everyone present. “Mom won’t be home until late and she put me in charge.”
    Sibylla placed the phone down on its cradle. Shabbethai looked sadly at the phone then glared at that boy, Blaise. What sort of name was Blaise? He sort of looked like that girl in the library who had translated that English book into Greek and destroyed his life.
    “Did you tell your mom you have a Jew in your house?” Gabriel Kubiak asked, looking at Shabbethai, not smiling.
    Blaise kept translating and Shabbethai kept wondering about the game of stick ball and how he was ever going to face his father and the Jews of Deborah...or any Jew for that matter.
    “So what if there’s a Jew in the house?” Joseph frowned. “What’s wrong with being Jewish? Isn’t like he’s a Croat or something. Jews are nice people. I like Chanukah and the candles. One of Mom’s friends is this lady named Chana. She’s nice and she’s Jewish. She comes to the house. She even ate here!”
    Joseph Drahuta, once Blaise showed up to play stick ball and translate English into Greek, had introduced Shabbethai to Gabriel Kubiak and his sister, Dorothea. They both were orphans and their foster mother was Joseph’s father’s sister.
    Once the French boy who knew Greek told everyone that he, Shabbethai Zebi, was Jewish, Gabriel started watching him almost like the Jews of Deborah had been watching him.
    Shabbethai wondered if people back in Smyrna knew about him, too.
    “Jews are worse than Croats,” Gabriel muttered (and Blaise dutifully translated). “My father told me that Jews started the wars. Jews are evil.”
    Shabbethai didn’t know what or who a Croat was. He hoped they weren’t a type of Jew.
    “Mr. Kubiak didn’t say anything like that.” Joseph laughed. “You’re crazy! Your dad doesn’t care if someone is Jewish. I have known him longer than you.”
    “I think he means his other father,” Sibylla said quietly, glaring at Gabriel. “I think Gabriel means his German father. His dead German father. I think Gabriel forgets that it was not a Jew who killed his first father. I think Gabriel should forget more of the past and remember more of the future here in Grantville. He owes his new mother and father that much!”
    “My father said Jews aren’t to be trusted,” Gabriel looked at Shabbethai and Shabbethai weighed the danger in that look. “He said Jews were witches and sorcerers. They poison water and steal babies.”
    Shabbethai flinched as the words were translated and wished, once again, that he hadn’t met the French boy who knew Greek while at the same time thanking God that he had. This would be worse if he could understand none of it.
    “It does not matter,” Joe’s younger brother Ulrich, who was adopted like Gabriel and Dorothea and Sibylla were, said. “Shaba is in Grantville. Everyone is safe in Grantville. And he plays stick ball well. You are mad that we beat your team, twice!”
    “But he is a