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Jews, Money, & Greed

Jews, Money, & Greed

Nov 06, 2023

Jews have been simultaneously depicted as money hungry pigs and leeches of society, the creators of capitalism as well as the creators of communism, for hundreds of years.

The stereotype of Jewish greed originates in the middle ages. Jews were not allowed to own land and were confined to ghettos so they could not become farmers. They could not join professional guilds so they could not become craftsmen.

Christians at the time believed that usury was sinful which prevented Christians from being involved in the field of finance - thus the Jews came to dominate that field. They were even sometimes recruited to it by Christian rulers.

Despite the fact that Jews were forced into these occupations, it led to the notion that Jews were unmoral and willing to engage in unethical practices.

This made it incredibly easy to scapegoat Jews as a probably cause for people’s financial misery. Different literature and art of the time reflects this, Jews often depicted as money hungry and such. One example is Shylock from Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice. Dozens of productions of this play were produced in Nazi Germany as machines of propaganda.

This all obviously led to ideas circulating that Jews were the embodiment of greed, exploiter of the poor, source of economic hardship, etc.

Meanwhile, for the other side of the trope, in 1933, an entry into the Oxford English dictionary read one of the definitions of the word Jew as ‘to cheat’. To ‘Jew down’ is a relatively common phrase today meaning to bargain something for a lower price.

Studies from the ADL report that these antisemitic tropes have been internalized by the general public. Even if it’s not intentional, people often invoke greed, money hungry, stingy, etc with Jewish people.

Today, Jewish figures who happen to have an excess of money are used by both sides of the political spectrum to claim Jews are responsible for global issues - George Soros for the right and the Rothschilds for the left are two examples.

This entire trope just further demonstrates how antisemitism is used to push Jews into a position where they are in between the ruling class and other oppressed groups - alone and targeted by both people.

Sources:
New Republic
ADL
Middle East Eye

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