Re: [Marxism] Jewish History

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

> I wonder if some of the "go between" or "entrepreneurial" or
> internationalist spirit of  Jewish culture is related to its origin in the
> region which is between the ancient (first ?) points of settled
> "civilization" at the Tigres-Euphrates and Nile Valley, such that they were
> intermediaries there, along with other groups in that in between region.
>
> Charles

Absolutely.

---

The Arabian traveler Ibrahim Al Tartuahi similarly attests to the scope of 
Jewish trade between Europe and the Orient. He writes, in 973, on visiting 
Mainz: ?It is marvelous to find, at such a distant point in the West, 
spices originating in the most remote East.? In accounts of the travels of 
the Spanish Jews des Gorionides, Quasvini, and Abraham Ibn Jakov, of the 
tenth century, mention is made of the price of wheat at Krakow and Prague; 
also of salt mines belonging to Jews. [106] According to Gumplowicz, the 
Jews were the sole intermediaries between the shores of the Baltic and 
Asia. An old document thus characterizes the Khazars, a Mongol tribe of the 
Caspian Sea which became converted to Judaism: ?They have no slaves to the 
land because they buy everything by means of money.? [107] Itil, the 
capital of the Khazars, was a great commercial center, the starting point 
for the transport of goods eventually ending up at Mainz.

The convert Herman relates, in an autobiographical work, that while he was 
still a Jew, he traveled regularly when he was twenty years old (about 
1127) between Cologne and Mainz in the pursuit of commercial matters, for 
?all Jews are engaged in trade? (siquidem omnes judad negotiationi inserviunt).

The words of R. Elieser Ben Natan are also characteristic of the period: 
?trade ? but that is our principal means of subsistence.? [108]

The Jews constituted ?the only class to make its living by trading. At the 
same time, thanks to the contacts which they maintained among themselves, 
they constituted the only economic link which survived ... between East and 
West.? [109]

The situation of the Jews in the first half of the Middle Ages was 
therefore extremely favorable. The Jews were considered as being a part of 
the upper classes in society and their juridical position was not 
perceptibly different from that of the nobility Under Charles the Bald, the 
Pistensian Edict punished the sale of impure gold or silver by the whip 
when serfs or those liable to forced labor were involved and by a money 
fine when the culprits were Jews or free men.. [110] ?The Jews of the 
earlier period filled a great need in the general economy which for a long 
time could not be filled by anybody else, namely, the need for carrying on 
a professional trade in goods.? [111]

http://www.marxists.de/religion/leon/ch2b.htm#d 


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