Chapter 6: Jews and Money Lending

Haim Gerber

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Chapter 6: Jews and Money Lending

Haim Gerber
Haim Gerber

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This chapter is in the book Crossing Borders

6 JEWS AND MONEY-LENDING It is generally assumed that during the Middle Ages and afterwards Jews everywhere were engaged in money-lending as their main occupation. However, this does not appear to have been the case in the Ottoman Empire. It would seem that in this state money-lending was of far lesser importance than elsewhere. The false impression may have been due, at least in part, to a reliance on Hebrew sources alone. These in themselves are extremely important, but for such a subject they reveal only one side of the coin. We shall now first analyze the internal Jewish sources, and will then show how substantial parts of this picture are given new meaning in the context of the surrounding society . It must be emphasized at the outset that money-lending by Jews in the Ottoman Empire was not rare but rather quite frequent. This is already apparent from the very few theoretical allusions to interest-taking by Rabbis who lived in the Ottoman Empire. Such allusions as were made must be viewed against their proper background. Originally Jewish law strictly forbade interest-taking, although a number of Biblical passages left room for doubt as to whether this total ban applied equally to non-Jews.1 An entirely new page in the Jewish involvement in moneylending commenced during the "high" Middle Ages in France and Germany in particular, when political and economic factors increasingly pushed the Jews into money-lending as almost their sole source of sustenance.2 Some of the greatest authorities on Jewish law lived in these areas at that time, and the fact that they tended to accept various compromises with the realities of the day had a great influence on the Rabbis of the subsequent centuries. The growing leniency toward interest-taking held true for Jews and non-Jews alike. It would seem that the normative approach of the Rabbis of Ottoman Jewry toward interest-taking was that it was acceptables as long as it was practiced in an indirect fashion and was disguised under some sort of legal fiction. Direct interest was still frowned on and was even strictly forbidden. A good example is a case brought before R. Joseph ben Leb, Rabbi of Salonica in the 16th ^See H.H. Cohn, Usury, "in M. Elon, The Principles of Jewish law, Jerusalem, 1975, pp. 500 ff. Cohn, "Usury."

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6 JEWS AND MONEY-LENDING It is generally assumed that during the Middle Ages and afterwards Jews everywhere were engaged in money-lending as their main occupation. However, this does not appear to have been the case in the Ottoman Empire. It would seem that in this state money-lending was of far lesser importance than elsewhere. The false impression may have been due, at least in part, to a reliance on Hebrew sources alone. These in themselves are extremely important, but for such a subject they reveal only one side of the coin. We shall now first analyze the internal Jewish sources, and will then show how substantial parts of this picture are given new meaning in the context of the surrounding society . It must be emphasized at the outset that money-lending by Jews in the Ottoman Empire was not rare but rather quite frequent. This is already apparent from the very few theoretical allusions to interest-taking by Rabbis who lived in the Ottoman Empire. Such allusions as were made must be viewed against their proper background. Originally Jewish law strictly forbade interest-taking, although a number of Biblical passages left room for doubt as to whether this total ban applied equally to non-Jews.1 An entirely new page in the Jewish involvement in moneylending commenced during the "high" Middle Ages in France and Germany in particular, when political and economic factors increasingly pushed the Jews into money-lending as almost their sole source of sustenance.2 Some of the greatest authorities on Jewish law lived in these areas at that time, and the fact that they tended to accept various compromises with the realities of the day had a great influence on the Rabbis of the subsequent centuries. The growing leniency toward interest-taking held true for Jews and non-Jews alike. It would seem that the normative approach of the Rabbis of Ottoman Jewry toward interest-taking was that it was acceptables as long as it was practiced in an indirect fashion and was disguised under some sort of legal fiction. Direct interest was still frowned on and was even strictly forbidden. A good example is a case brought before R. Joseph ben Leb, Rabbi of Salonica in the 16th ^See H.H. Cohn, Usury, "in M. Elon, The Principles of Jewish law, Jerusalem, 1975, pp. 500 ff. Cohn, "Usury."

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