Podcast reveals persecution of Jews goes back centuries

Since my daughter was born earlier this year, I've really gotten into podcasts. I can listen to them while doing chores around the house. It's become one of my main sources of entertainment, and it makes doing the chores go faster (or seem faster, at least).

One that I especially like is the 'History This Week” podcast from The History Channel. The host reviews an important event from history from that week of the year, sometimes in the recent past and sometimes hundreds of years ago.

I listened to one recently about an event from 1492. We all know that as the year 'Columbus sailed the ocean blue,” but it was also the year of a sad moment in European history, the year that King Ferdinand II of Aragon and Queen Isabella I of Castille expelled all Jews from their kingdom, the newly unified nation of Spain.

When we think of Jewish persecution in Europe, the first thing that comes to mind is the Holocaust, the murder of 6 million Jews at the hands of Nazi Germany during World War II. But anti-Semitism in Europe goes back many centuries and was present in many more countries than just Germany. In fact, I learned in this podcast that Spain was not the only country that sought to expel Jews. It's stunning to look at the list of cities, provinces and kingdoms that persecuted Jews in some way or another, in places like England, Italy, Austria, France, Portugal and many others.

I had always wondered why Jews were so often the scapegoat of a nation's problems and so often vilified by demagogic rulers. The podcast shed some light on this question and on how stereotypes of Jews developed.

For many centuries, it was considered sinful to charge interest on a loan. This was grounded in several Bible verses that prohibit charging interest, such as Exodus 22:25: 'If you lend money to any of my people with you who is poor, you shall not be like a moneylender to him, and you shall not exact interest from him.” Deuteronomy 23: 19-20 states that you may not charge interest 'from your brother,” but you may charge a foreigner interest.

Europeans came to interpret these passages as meaning it was wrong for a Christian to charge a fellow Christian interest, but not wrong for a Jew to charge a Christian. This is how a lot of Jews of this era got into lending. They were encouraged to do so by their Christian neighbors. Not only that, but many areas forbade Jews from working in other trades, so that lending was one of the few options left.

This arrangement resulted in a lot of Christians owing money to Jews, and the Christians began to resent this. This resentment erupted in acts of mob violence and murder and contributed to Jewish stereotypes that have lasted for centuries.

In the specific case of Spain, Jews had been under assault for a hundred years before the 1492 decree. Many were forced to convert to Christianity, but the church became suspicious that these converts were practicing Judaism in secret, abetted by Jews in their neighborhood. When the crown announced that Jews had to either convert or leave, some of them walked hundreds of miles to Portugal, only to be turned away at the border by Portuguese authorities. Others did convert, to save their skin.

Jewish persecution in Europe and around the world is a depressing part of human history, but one we must learn from it so we do not repeat it.