Jew and Usury

The reasons of hatred from Jews

From many years Jews were famous for being greedy and collecting property from legal and illegal ways. As Torah prohibited Jews from usury among themselves but for other non-Jewish people was allowed and it shows that the history of Israelis about usury was allowed for other nations and it shows that the history of Israelis about usury goes back to old times.
In 1893 remains of archives of a Jewish family in Nippur in Mesopotamia were found by Americans. More than 700 documents which were collected in this probe show that the mentioned family was known as Sons of Mourasho between the years of 403-455 A.D who were occupied to financial operations about usury in the ages of Ardeshir the first and Darrius the second.
Henry Ford says: the philosophy of Jew about money and property was based on taking over on properties not based on making wealth and it is clear that there is a big difference. Therefore, it must say that Jew are the lords of wealth not producers. The economists know them as the emperors of wealth and kings of banks. Basically, people know lucre as an ugly and inappropriate phenomenon however, they had to accept that inevitably. Therefore, along the history and among all of the civilizations hatred from usurer was common.
In Roman Empire the word “Sector” collocated with usurer and murderer and both of them had same meaning. Absolutely, one of the most reasons of general hatred from Israelis in the whole of history should be searched in their occupation and being extremist in usury and Jews were known as Vampire which indicates that they abuse from Christians needs to make money and it is their usury behavior.
Usually, each of units of the society from different groups and social classes needed to see Jewish usurer if a local ruler wanted to hold a marriage ceremony, to raise against enemies’ attacks, to make a city or an area, to build a church and when a poor man may encounter with economic crisis in all of these cases usurer was the only person who should be met because he was a very rich man.
As in 12th century Aaron the Jew lived in England he gave a usury loan to build nine Cathedrals and other Jews with great wealth could provide financial protection from some of wars in Europe. Poor people because of their successive relations with Jewish usurers. They were known as an exploiting people. Especially, most of them were unable to pay back their loans and as the result, they would lose their farmlands, agricultural tools, and even their clothes.
In addition, the main reason which intensified this hate. Too much profit was given from people by Jews while average of usury profit in medieval ages was 12.5 % and Jews gained more profit for their loans. From the other hand, since these usurers were always endangered and may exile or lose their money and properties couldn’t use the common rules to receive any guarantee for their loans therefore, to reaching to their goals used different tricks like providing media between themselves and debtors and this caused the profit rate to be raised which was the profit rate in England was 43-86%, in Austria in 1244 A.D was 173% and in some areas of France was 300%. It is clear that repaying these loans provided so much problems for people and usurers were charged with stealth and cruelty accusations.
Especially, in these relations if the borrower was not able to pay back his debts, the usurer could seize the pawn things even if they were stolen ones. Jews racially, spiritually, and environmentally always felt insecure and they had to exchange their properties into liquidity which was easily portable and can do usury and exchanging by that money. From the other side, they afforded to provide security and peace for themselves by tribute to rulers for example, English Jews presented part of their usury incomings to Kings as we said before about 12% of total incomes of royal treasury was gathered by this way. Even in some of countries like Spain this rate was higher. It was caused that kings support this tribe unsparingly and even prevent them to become Christians because it was a threat for their interests.
The flexibility of Jews to adopt with different conditions was one of the ways to reach financial interests and designing professional methods to get rid of legal obstacles were the example features of this tribe. From 9th century Jews who were in Islamic countries provided a new kind of usury and that was financial investment in commercial operations. Some of these financial contributions were as covers for escaping from Islamic rules about prohibition of usury.
A Jew gave money to a businessmen and dealt price of profit was received without considering the amount of profit and loss. This method became common and in 19th century the hidden and unofficial usury was prevalent among Muslims. At this time in Baghdad the capital of Abbasid caliphate, most professional usurers lived among Jews like Yousef ibn Finas, Aaron ibn Omram and especially Netira. They lend money to Abbasid Caliphas with high amount of interest rate. European Jews were professional in usury. Europeans’ opinions about Jews’ face and personality were usurers, collecting wealth and traders.
Between 12th and 15th centuries Jews were the only people who have been paying loans with high interest rates which the two terms of usurer and Jews were synonym. Oxford dictionary provided a general definition from the term “Jew” which consists of 3 elements:
1. He is a Hebrew.
2. A usurer: a person who does expensive deals and steals the properties of other people.
3. This term was known as deceiving and cheating too.
These definitions and interpretations show the personality and action of Jews in European societies.
According to William Shakespeare’s scenario in the comedy of Venetian Merchandise showed a Jewish usurer who was Shylock and it is the interpretation and mentality of Europeans from Jews’ personality and manner in new centuries. Also Charles Dickens showed similar personality from Fagin the Jew in Oliver Twist.
David Diok the former member of Congress in U.S wrote that: Mark Twain, An American and famous writer, published an article in 1899 in Harper journal and he defended from Jews by a positive view and supported them but some parts of the article cannot be ignored.
He said that: After civil war in U.S in the special states for growing cottons black people planted cottons with small amount of salary from Landlords. After a while, Jews entered in those areas and built places near the farms and borrowed whatever black people needed and finally Jews gained profit of all of the productions and black people ‘s portion will be not being paid until next year therefore, all of people hated from Jews.
Diok quoted from Robinowitz that in 1221 French government incomes from usury interests of Jews were higher than other government. Louie the ninth, French king, announced his worries about illegal incomes of Jews. Jews were prohibited from lending money to people and he asked from that Jewish people to work like others do. Diok quoted from Achill Luchaire too: in Medieval ages some of churches in Europe were closed because of their debts to Jews.
Diok discussed about Jews’ occupations in Medieval ages and asked that: by this it is not surprising that Jews were disagreed with thoughts an important saint like saint Thomas Aquinas the leader of love and kindness. He said that: Jews are not allowed to reach their economic interests by usury. They have to earn money by working and not by usury and greed.