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Comment by epolanski | Hacker News Reader

Well it's hard to not associate Jews with money in Europe, especially eastern one, where for cultural and religious reasons the minority was heavily involved in trade and banking since middle age.

Even today despite global jews being less than 0.2% of world population are 20% of Forbes 200 richest, e.g. 5 of the 10 richest americans are jews.

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> My polish grandmother has it as a painting in her house (a jew counting coins). She bought it few years ago. She says the jew brings good luck. She is absolutely not racist nor antisemitic.

> Even today despite global jews being less than 0.2% of world population are 20% of Forbes 200 richest, e.g. 5 of the 10 richest americans are jews.

While I don't know your grandmother, your representation of yourself reads very antisemitic to non-Polish audiences. You may want to take a minute of introspection as to what shared cultural influences led to your grandmother's art choices and your insistence that antisemitic stereotypes are valid. There might be a connection there. That said, you probably wouldn't want me painting all Poles as insensitive oblivious racists.

There's a difference in statistics which don't say anything about causality - like the mentioned involvement in banking due to religious/cultural restrictions, and the association going the other way - this is a Jewish figurine with money, therefore it's lucky. That's the whole issue with antisemitism, racism, etc. It's like the historical connection of black people being banned from public pools -vs- associating being black with not being a good swimmer.

It's actually pretty easy to not do associations the other way... just need to be aware and care. It's easier for us now than for previous generations to be aware at least, but being open-minded in general always helped.

Just because a stereotype has a historical basis doesn't make it not racist. In the Americas black people were slaves for hundreds of years, but if I carry around a little statue of an African slave because that's what I still associate with black people, that's definitely racist and dehumanizing.

The sin of usery prevented Catholics from banking leaving a void filled by people who didn’t follow Christ.

Think about how much we decry banks today. Now place yourself in the 14C. Jesus drove out the moneychangers 4 daYs before his crucification, hmm today. The “greatest story ever told” informs people. Moneychangers are bad, moneychangers are Jewish therefore Jews are bad.

This is completely bonkers. Usury isn't condemned because Christ threw the money changers out. Usury is condemned because it is exploitative and because it is theft[0]. IIRC, Jewish bankers weren't even the worst offenders in, say, Renaissance Europe; there were Christian bankers who charged higher interest.

One difference, though, is that while Catholics are forbidden from offering usurious loans to anyone, Jews are only forbidden from doing so to other Jews. It is permissible to offer such loans to non-Jews[1].

[0] https://www.newadvent.org/summa/3078.htm

[1] https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/4108763/jewis...

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