Re:How interest-free banking works: The case of JAK
by eli_gottlieb on Tuesday May 13, 2014 @07:09AM
(#7737508)
Jews were exploited by Christian rulers as financiers, in two ways:
* Jews were allowed to loan money to non-Jews, whom the Jewish legal system originally counted as "foreigners". (Please remember that these laws were written in a much more tribalistic and xenophobic age.)
* Laws were passed keeping Jews out of professions other than peddling and moneylending, thus ensuring a steady supply of Jewish lenders.
* If the ruling class didn't want to pay back a Jewish lender, they could just call him a Christ-killer, turn a mob against him, and run him out of town.
* Jews were allowed to loan money to non-Jews, whom the Jewish legal system originally counted as "foreigners". (Please remember that these laws were written in a much more tribalistic and xenophobic age.)
* Laws were passed keeping Jews out of professions other than peddling and moneylending, thus ensuring a steady supply of Jewish lenders.
* If the ruling class didn't want to pay back a Jewish lender, they could just call him a Christ-killer, turn a mob against him, and run him out of town.