Homo Judaicus Economicus

Abstract

Beginning in the Middle Ages, Jews became important actors in European economic life. Over the centuries Jewish economic activity gave rise to myriad myths and fantasies: The Jew as Shylock or capitalist exploiter, on one hand, and the Jew as Marxist predator or socialist agitator, on the other, the twain meeting as international Jewish bankers conspiring with the international Jewish Bolsheviks to destroy, enslave, and dominate by the techniques of the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion. The peculiar role of Jews in the European economy and the historic myths that evolved regarding this role ultimately sprang from the theological anti Judaism promulgated by Christian thinkers; these myths contributed decisively to the virulence of modern antisemitism, which remains rooted in theology. Over the centuries since the earliest Christian commentators, the image of Jesus’ “cleansing of the Temple” and the expulsion of the money changers (Mark 11:15–19) have been used to condemn Jewish business activity, contrasting the crass materialist mentality of Judaism to the spirituality of Jesus and Christianity. The belief that the Temple worship was desecrated by sordid trade and profiteering and that purity was restored by the expulsion of the money changers became a leitmotif of our culture.4