The Myth of Jewish Economic Continuity? Medieval Jewish Moneylending and Jews as "Harbingers of Modernity"

• In Event: Medieval Jewish Moneylending and the “Jewish Economic Function” Reconsidered

Abstract

Modern Jewish economic historiography has often presented Jews as “harbingers of economic modernity.” This idea stresses a fundamental continuity between general economic modernity and the Jewish past, in stark contrast to some other fields in which modernity constitutes a watershed. This paper addresses some of the ways in which this particular modern historiographical image relies on the narrative of the medieval Jewish moneylender, among others, for its salience. Drawing on the recent work of Julie Mell, and in particular on her discussions of twentieth-century economic historians (including Guido Kisch, Toni Oelsner, Michael Postan, and Lester Little), this paper seeks to highlight the possible implications of the revision of the medieval picture for the modern one. If Jews were not, in fact, specialists in moneylending in the Middle Ages, how might this affect the broader identification of Jews with trade, with economic mobility, or with other characteristics that are sometimes identified as cognate between Jews as a group and economic modernity as a broad phenomenon?

Author

• Samuel Hayim Brody