The moneyed class wanted a way to collect interest for their moneylending, but as “good Christians/Catholics” usury was Biblically forbidden. ‘Do good unto your brother in faith’ etc
Jews provided a convenient workaround for that restriction. And bigots spun that into a global conspiracy.
That’s wild, I had no idea.
“Its not usury, if we call it interest because our God is a moron.”
Christians apparently.
All the Abrahamic religions have these hilarious workarounds, like just leaving your oven on all Sabbath to avoid using a machine
I think it was Mormon teens that started “soaking”. It was decided by them that sex wasn’t actually sex unless you were thrusting back and fourth. Just sticking it in and not moving was fine.
Then, logically, it’s still not sex so long as you aren’t the ones trying to move while you’re soaking, so if a third friend happened to be bouncing on the bed and it was causing the motion of sex, that’s still OK too.
Oh for sure and, as I imagine you know too, for me, the saddest part is, if their religion were ever found to be true, none of these work around they think they found would work.
Lol I like to imagine the God being like “oh you little scamp I didn’t think of that one!”
From my understanding, Jews don’t believe that things like this are loopholes. They believe that, God’s law being perfect, they were intended features of Jewish life. Then again, you have so many different sects of Judaism (like you do with Christianity) that you don’t get a clear-cut consensus on issues like this across the whole religion.
I mean yeah, of course any religious folks engaging in shenanigans would shape the narrative to justify it.
Like this is just hilarious
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/KosherSwitch
But as you say, there is no consensus, as seen in the article.
For all his omniscience, God never understood the time value of money.
It wasn’t that they were forced to work as money lenders, it was that their religion did not prohibit it whereas Muslims and early Christians were not allowed to charge interest on loaned money.
I mean, Jews were legally barred from most professions in much of Europe. If you can’t be an artisan, a retainer, or a peasant farmer, not sure how many more viable options there are for making a Medieval living.
So, you ban a group of people from most professions. You exclusively allow them to work in another profession. And, it’s a group of people that share a religion, so they intermarry and attend religious services together.
It’s a real mystery why so many of them work in the same profession, isn’t it!
Incidentally, this also explains why there are so many jews in Hollywood. Being a populist entertainer (like vaudeville) was one of the careers you could pursue as a jew in the late 1800s / early 1900s. When radio and movies first started, there were no incumbents who could refuse to allow jews into the business. Hollywood itself existed because it was a way to try to get out of the range of people trying to enforce Thomas Edison’s patents. I’d imagine it wasn’t just Edison’s patents that they got away from, but all the existing power structures that kept jews out of jobs.
Yeah, that’s the part I never understood.
“Let’s make Jews only merchants and bankers”
“Why are so many rich persons jewish???”
It just shows again: being hateful disables your cognitive functions.
Dumb as fucking rocks, it is. But I guess no one ever accused racists of being too smart.
This is not how it works. There is no much Jewish people being billionaire than from white or Christians communities. The medieval assignation to moneylender was not a privilege : this was a convenient way for Christians to get rid of their debt in killing every jews in town. This how big project have been financed, like cathedrals.
Furthermore, money is not influence or power, army and means or productions are. And Jewish were precisely forbidden to have both. So they could be threat by force or discriminate by laws.
Jewish are note the exception, the large majority of us are part of the work force. In the beginning of the 20th century, lots of the jewish proletariat is organized as such (like in the Bund) or in another organization (Anarchist, Bolschevik, Social-democrats). Not because there is “a plan” but because of the rise of nationalism (and the threat of pogroms) and because there more precarious than the majority of the workers (sometimes because of discrimination, like in the Yiddishland, or because their family have been dispossessed).
After WWII, the part of proletariat in the Jewisch communities plummet, because their where in first line during the extermination. Even before nazis, other movement attack our people, organization and struggles, like the Endeck in Polonia.
I understand that those posts are made to refute antisemitism, but those premises are wrong, and is part of the antisemitic propaganda
You can be forced into a role by society and use that position to leverage privilege. Just look at the Irish becoming cops in the US
Doesn’t have to be mutually exclusive 🤷🏽♂️
Next step is talking about “Rootless cosmopolitans” and “Labor aristocracy”
How many of you have the same job that your parents have?
Just arguing the logic of this meme.
For the majority of history that’s been the norm. Only in more recent times, with the advent of widespread tertiary education people are more likely to choose their own path as opposed to going into the family business.
I agree. Its more or less my point.
