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Usurers.

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"While the ghetto became a universal symbol of segregation, at the time of its establishment it was regarded by the Venetians as a major concession to the Jews, who up until then had been excluded entirely from the city.''

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Although its population never exceeded 5,000, the Jewish community of Venice achieved an importance far greater than these numbers would suggest. It was Venice, after all, that created the first ghetto in 1516 when it designated a specific district for the Jews in a neighborhood known as the "foundry" or, in Venetian dialect, getto or ghetto.

While the ghetto became a universal symbol of segregation, at the time of its establishment it was regarded by the Venetians as a major concession to the Jews, who up until then had been excluded entirely from the city. The Venetian Senate decided to invite Jewish money-lenders from nearby Mestre and Murano for a specific economic purpose: to provide capital for the city's far-flung Mediterranean commerce and to help fund its costly wars to keep those trade routes open.

Riccardo Calimani's newly published "The Ghetto of Venice" reminds us of the extent to which Jewish life in Venice--as in the rest of Europe--was shaped by the economic and social needs of the surrounding society. The heavy concentration of Jewish bankers in Venice--caricatured by William Shakespeare in the figure of Shylock in "The Merchant of Venice"--was not due to some instinctive attraction on the part of Jews to moneylending but the direct result of elaborate legislation that made it virtually impossible for them to do anything else. The Jews of Venice could not own land and for many years were banned from all kinds of commerce and business other than dealing in secondhand clothing.

Catholic doctrine prevented Christians from lending money at interest but did not prohibit Jews from doing so. Consequently, many Renaissance city-states brought in Jews to stimulate trade and expand credit, but during fits of religious revivalism Catholic preachers would inveigh against usury as the source of all evil and the moneylenders would be subject to violent popular attacks or banishment. Venice also vacillated between relative tolerance and sudden backlashes of anti-Semitism, often in response to swings in the Republic's uneasy relations with the Vatican. Innumerable times the Venetian senate ordered the expulsion of the Jews, only to revoke the edict at the last minute. But as an independent and business-minded state, Venice protected its Jews more than most.

In 1541, for example, the "Most Serene Republic of Venice" shrewdly invited Jewish merchants who had been expelled from Spain in 1492 to trade in the city. Venice understood that it needed to reverse the economic decline that had begun with the discovery of the New World and the expansion of trade on the Atlantic Ocean. Indeed, these Jewish merchants, who had settled all around the rim of the Mediterranean, opened up rich new trading possibilities, especially with the Ottoman Empire. Venice later gave safe passage to a second group of immigrants, the Marranos, Spanish and Portuguese Jews who had initially remained in their countries during the Inquisition and had been forcibly converted to Christianity.

Most Marranos led a double life--outwardly Christian, privately Jewish--and were viewed with suspicion by Jews and Christians alike. Calimani includes a fascinating chapter that summarizes trials in which the authorities attempted to deal with the theological complications presented by the Marranos. Eventually, Venice allowed Marranos to convert back to Judaism if they wished.

This influx of immigrants from all over stimulated a rich cultural as well as commercial revival. Although Jews were not allowed to own printing presses, the Christian publishers of Venice printed a wide range of Jewish authors, attracting scholars from across Europe. As Venice permitted more contact between Jews and Christians, a rich cross-pollenation between Jewish scholarship and Renaissance humanism occurred. Not only did humanists begin to study the tradition of the Jewish cabala, Venetian Jews began to explore beyond religion into the areas of music, poetry and drama.

At the same time, in their everyday life the Jews of the ghetto developed a deep affection for their city and incorporated its customs into their own. "On the feast of Purim, in emulation of the famous Venetian Carnival, the Jews dressed up in masks and disguises," Calimani notes. He also tells the story of a famous Venetian rabbi who invents a theological justification for allowing Jews to watch a Venetian regatta on a Jewish holiday.

At moments, Calimani's historical presentation bogs down in a recitation of facts and dates, but he enlivens the history considerably by including chapters on representative figures of Venetian Jewish history: Leone da Modena, a rabbi who wrote poetry and loved gambling and music; Daniel Rodriga, a Marrano merchant who convinced Venice to let him build the port of Spalato; and Moses Zacuto, known as the "Jewish Dante" for his 17th-Century epic poem about a journey to Hell.

Although the book ranges from the beginnings of the ghetto to the present, it concentrates almost exclusively on the period from 1516 to 1700. Calimani races through the last 287 years of the Venice ghetto in less than 60 pages. The emphasis is not entirely misplaced: The vitality of the city's ghetto was closely linked to the fortunes of Venice itself. In the 18th Century the ghetto fell into torpor as Venice declined. By the time the Venetian Republic collapsed under the invasion of Napoleon in 1797, the ghetto was a comparatively poor community of only 1,600 souls. Calimani might have done well, however, to give us more on the 20th Century--especially the Fascist era and the period of Nazi occupation--to which he dedicates only six pages. The author seems to note the deficiency by apologetically naming the last chapter "The 20th Century: A History Yet to Be Written." Nonetheless, the book remains a solid introduction to a fascinating subject.

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The Wall Street of 16th-Century Venice : THE GHETTO OF VENICE by Riccardo Calimani, translated by Katherine Silberblatt Wolfthal (M. Evans: $19.95; 400 pp.)

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Although its population never exceeded 5,000, the Jewish community of Venice achieved an importance far greater than these numbers would suggest. It was Venice, after all, that created the first ghetto in 1516 when it designated a specific district for the Jews in a neighborhood known as the "foundry" or, in Venetian dialect, getto or ghetto.

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The bible was against adding interest on money to fellow jews oppose to strangers.

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The following article recounts the history of the main commercial occupation of Jews in Christian Europe, moneylending. It is reprinted with permission from Medieval Jewish Civilization: An Encyclopedia (Routledge).

Jewish Law Took an Interest in Interest

General histories of the Middle Ages, and even more specialized ones such as those on medieval commerce, say two things about Jews: they were "usurers" and they engaged in the slave trade. One of the oldest Christian accusations against Jews in the medieval period was, indeed, that of usury. If by "usury" we accept the Canon Law definition of any profit whatever, then Jews were of course usurers; but the modern understanding of the term is rather the taking of excessive interest, and to avoid that argument, and the pejorative connotations of the term, "moneylending" is preferred in this article.

Biblical law forbids taking or giving interest to "your brother" (a fellow Jew), whether money or food or "any thing." The Talmud interpreted this very strictly, so much so that even greeting someone from whom you have borrowed, if such greeting had not previously been the custom, is forbidden. [For Biblical law regarding moneylending, see, for example, Exodus 22:24, Deuteronomy 23:20-21, Leviticus 25:35-37.]

The Bible further permitted lending money on interest to a "stranger", but prohibited it to a fellow Jew ("your brother"). The Talmud observes that even the borrower transgresses the commandment if he borrows on interest...

Originally, the medieval rabbinical attitude toward lending money on interest to Gentiles was very conservative, restricting it to scholars (not only as a means of income but because it was felt that they would be cautious about such loans and limit the interest charged) or to cases where it was absolutely necessary for livelihood.

Moneylending Yielded High Profits for Little Risk

Ultimately, however, the potential of great profits and the widespread demand for moneylending made it universal among Jews. Mordecai B. Hillel of Germany (b. 1298) wrote that there is no profit in any form of commerce like that to be made in lending money. Ibn Adret in Spain observed that it has become permitted for everyone to charge interest on loans to Gentiles, "and now all have made themselves 'sages' in this respect, adding that he heard in the name of Rashi, that this is because taxes have constantly been increased and there is no longer any limit to "because of livelihood" (i.e. in order to meet their tax burden, Jews had no alternative.)

As noted elsewhere, fanciful theories have been advanced as fact with regard to Jews either having been "forced," or voluntarily choosing to abandon landholding, and with no alternative choosing moneylending as a livelihood. Not one scrap of evidence has ever been produced to support such theories, and in fact there is no evidence. Undoubtedly the above statement by authoritative rabbis are correct: the ever increasing tax burdens, on the one hand, and the relatively large profits to be made with virtually no risk, on the other, encouraged Jews to engage in moneylending on ever larger scales.

Christian Moneylending: Ignored Laws, High Interest

Another factor that has sometimes been suggested, the lack of alternative availability of lenders owing to church prohibitions on usury, ignores reality in favor of theory. While it is true that canon law, beginning in the late twelfth century and throughout the thirteenth, placed absolute prohibitions and harsh penalties on Christian lending on interest, it is also true that these measures were frequently ignored in practice even by churches, monasteries, bishops and the popes themselves.

Italian merchants were present in France and Germany and ever ready to lend money, charging such rates of interest as the market would allow. It has frequently been pointed out that the rates of interest charged by Jews never approached the rates charged by Christian lenders, including Church authorities...

Strange Relationships

Just as Jews lent money to Christians, so they also frequently borrowed money from them, also on interest. Indicative of this strange and often uncertain relationship that existed between Jews and Christians is an interesting responsum concerning a Jew who had borrowed money from a Christian and asked a Jewish friend to give him the money to repay the debt. Then some other Christians came and robbed the houses of the Jews (the question was whether the debtor was not required to return the money that his friend had given him, since it would anyway have been stolen, had he not given it to him: the answer was. that h e was obligated to repay it.).

However piously Church officials protested against "usury;" they were themselves quite willing to borrow money from Jews. Already in the ninth century we hear of priests selling church vessels to Jews, and later such object were frequently given as pledges for loans, in spite of the protests of the cantonists and civil law...Jews also had to be careful about taking surety objects that later could be claimed to have been stolen (although at times laws protected Jews against such charges) or "bloodstained garments" that could be suspicious.

It was certainly prudent and necessary to have some form of security, in the way of pledges, for loans to Christians, since it was often easy enough for the borrower simply not to repay the loans...Eventually it became necessary for civil authorities, and particularly the kings, to enact measures protecting the moneylending privileges of the Jews and to ensure that they were repaid.

Did Jews Actually Charge Exorbitant Interest?

There is not doubt that some Jews, at least, charged what today would be considered exorbitant rates of interest. There is the report, for example, of the abbey of Saint-Benigne in Dijon (France), which in 1196 borrowed 1700 livres (pounds) from a Jew at the rate of 65 percent. For eleven years the abbey could not pay anything on the loan so that the debt had grown to 9825 livres. In Marseilles, the abbey of Saint-Victor in 1185 owed 80,000 sous to the Jews of the city and granted them some property, which would have included churches in payment. To avoid this "scandal" of Jews owning churches, the bishop of Antibes assumed the debt himself.

On the other hand, it must be realized that these rates of interest were annual, and rarely did loans to individuals, at least, remain unpaid for as long as a year...As we have seen, though, in some cases the debtors made few or no payments for years, and then complained bitterly about the high interest.

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Jewish Moneylending | My Jewish Learning

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The following article recounts the history of the main commercial occupation of Jews in Christian Europe, moneylending. It is reprinted with permission from Medieval Jewish Civilization: An Encyclopedia (Routledge). General histories of the Middle Ages, and even more specialized ones such as those on medieval commerce, say two things about Jews: they were "usurers" and they engaged in the slave trade.

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¨Although these protestors are typically leftists—opponents of capitalism and anything associated with it—their contempt for moneylending is shared by others, including radical Christians and Muslims who regard charging interest on loans as a violation of God’s law and thus as immoral.¨
this meaning that the didn like this because it was against god, making it hard to be a  https://www.theobjectivestandard.com/2007/08/morality-of-moneylending/
¨By taking risks and investing their capital in what they thought would make them the most money, moneylenders and other financiers made possible whole industries—such as those of steel, railroads, automobiles, air travel, air conditioning, and medical devices. Without capital, often provided through usury, such life-enhancing industries would not exist—and home-ownership would be impossible to all but the wealthiest people.¨ Money lenders actually made most things possible and even though they weren´t loved by most, they were important for a time. ( same link)