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Quote by: deedee Ok. Maybe we can start with Jewish history and with what I agree with in your statement above.
1. The Jews were rich and still are. They became extremely wealthy when they fled their slavery days in Egypt.......according to Jewish history, after the 10th plague, the Egyptians gave all their gold to the Jews and basically booted them out. Do you agree with this? |
What a myth. Systemic persecution often limited the wealth creating capabilities of the Jewish people. The majority of the Jewish population in Eastern Europe arrived in Eastern Eerope when the nation of Poland-Lithuania invited them during the 16th century. Poland Lithuana later got carved up, and a huge chunk got taken by the Tzarist Russian Empire. The Czars drafted all Jewish boys into the army at age 13, forbad any Jews to live outside "the Pale" of Jewish settlements, causing overcrowding. This policy is where the term "ghetto" comes from. The Czars would also unleash periodic waves of organized homicide on the Jews, especially when he was facing embarassment from things like failed wars. As a result, the Jews of Eastern Europe were of very humble means, mostly living in villages working trades such as tailoring. When they came to America mostly in the 19th century, like most immigrants they came with hardly anything.
One reason they were able to do so well in America was of the traditional Jewish focus on education. Jewish communities in Eastern Europe were some of the most heavily education-focused in the world, with a large degree of the male population dedicated to full-time study of the Torah and Talmud. Also, Ccenturies of persecution created a strong (and still prevalent) sense of Jewish community, which assisted new arrivals socially and materially.
The Jews of Germany and Western Europe were typically more financially endowed and sometimes helped out the Jews of Eastern Europe. These Jews were much more integrated into their respective socities, and often made a conscious effort to submerge their Jewish identity in favor of their national one (this failed to stop persecution, however). The more assimaltionist sects of Judaism, such as Reform, emerged from this location. In Central/Western Europe, historically the jobs that Jews chose to take was often influenced by restrictive Church law. As is well known, the Christian church forbade a Christian to loan another Christian money at an interest rate. This alllowed the Jews to fulfill a necessary function and make some money off banking. What happened sometimes, such as was the case in England, was that a royal family or interest would borrow a great degree of money from the Jews, and rather than repay the them, would expel them from the country. When Jews did make money they often drew the ire of their neighbors and got expelled. Also, in many communities where they were able to establish themselves, (such as Moor-occupied Spain), they got expelled and had to start from scratch. Another example of this is in North Africa where the hundreds of living in some of the most ancient Jewish communities faced persecution and expulsion due to ethnic hatred inspired by the Arab-Israeli Wars of 1948 and 1967. Almost all of them left.
"The Jews" were (and still are) hardly some monolithic group with one set level of wealth. Some populations were well off, while some barely got by. The political situation of persecution had a massive influence on the economic history.