Anticapitalism and the Emergence of Antisemitism. Stephanie Chasin
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Название: Anticapitalism and the Emergence of Antisemitism

Автор: Stephanie Chasin

Издательство: Ingram

Жанр: Банковское дело

Серия:

isbn: 9781433170850

isbn:

СКАЧАТЬ idea that Jews are money-driven and that capitalism is Jewish has a long history. This longstanding myth is the subject of this book. It explores the interconnection that ran, and still runs, across the political and social spectrum and was constructed over centuries by critics of capitalism. From medieval usury (lending at interest) to modern capitalism, Jews were depicted as the bearers of this economic system that has been denounced as everything from extortionate to evil. In the modern era, German economists Karl Marx and Werner Sombart were two of the leading proponents to claim that capitalism was a Jewish invention and formed what was called the “Jewish spirit,” in their respective books Zur Judenfrage (1843) and Die Juden und das Wirtschaftsleben (1911).2

      Despite the ongoing efforts to depict the Jews as “the Other” in the history of antisemitism, Jews were not eternal pariahs, living apart from Western European society. There were brutal attacks in various places at various times and this book documents the consistent efforts to taint Jews as immoral because of their presence in moneylending. Yet, Jews also had business contacts, friendships, and sexual relationships with Christians. They were not a “bloc” standing around, generation after generation, waiting for the next expulsion or violent event, frozen in anticipation. People traded, delivered babies, healed the sick or hastened their death, sold bread, cut diamonds, harvested their grapes, and collected coral, among many other things. And those other things included lending money at the banci in medieval Europe, speculating at the early stock exchanges in Amsterdam and London, or, today, trading on Wall Street.

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      This book is a broad inquiry into why, when, and how this connection emerged in Western Europe and became the most enduring stereotype underpinning antisemitism. How did the attitudes towards a market economy based on capital intersect with, influence, and affect the image of the Jewish moneylender? The fact that only a small number of Jews were ever involved in finance leaves the questions as to why usury was considered corrupt and immoral in the first place and why money/usury/capitalism/banking become bestowed collectively on all Jews? Why and how did this stereotype endure for so long and why didn’t it dissipate when Christians entered the field of usury or over the many centuries ←x | xi→that followed? And were there places or times that it was not as virulent as other regions at other periods?

      To grapple with these questions, the book’s geographical scope begins with Western Europe and ends with the United States and Israel. It is in early twelfth-century Europe that we find a marked upturn of anti-Jewish rhetoric concerning Jews and usury. It is the contention of this book that this negative connection between Jews and money was forged during this time. That СКАЧАТЬ