Was It Voltaire Who First Wrongly Associated Jews With Money?
I just finished reading Voltaire’s Candide( which I Reluctantly Received From My Humanities Professor.)
I Noticed later On in the story how the characters where ‘cheated’ out of GREAT sums of money several times by Jewish individuals; leaving the main character broke. In the footnotes it explained that he(Voltaire) was upset over losing money due to disputes with Jewish brokers and therefore made space for Jews to be mocked in his story(alongside every other race,group, religion, and organisation-Might I add)
I couldn’t help but wonder if the negative association stemed from his book (which was published way back in 1759 and is still quite funny to the modern reader).
Cool
Very Cool
Oh the stereotype has been around a lot longer than that – I imediately thing of Shakespeare’s “Merchent of Venice”, but it was established long before that as well.
If I recall correctly, Catholics in the Middle Ages were not allowed to lend money at interest (usury), and it fell to the Jews to be the moneylenders (I believe for them usury was okay to those outside of thier religion).
I don’t know if there was any great connection between Jews and moneylenders before this time. Interesting question.
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