Quote:
Originally posted by Colin
Gotta love a people who were smart enough to charge interest on loans while all of Christendom forbade it. Compound interest is your friend.
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Actually, no. Jews were "ghettoized" into becoming money lenders because all the other "lucrative" business were legally closed to them. As European nations began to see the importance of finance during the late Middle Ages, you start seeing the expulsions of Jews as local merchants muscled in on the "usury"/loan business. Everyone knows of the Expulsion of 1492 of Jews from Spain but England, Portugal, almost all European countries expelled Jews as well.