The Valuation of Coins in Medieval Jewish Jurisprudence (original) (raw)

The Philosophy of Money in Early Judaism (500 BCE-100 CE

The Palgrave Handbook of Philosophy and Money Volume 1: Ancient and Medieval Thought, 2024

In this chapter, I will survey the ways in which ancient Jews interacted with coin money, as reflected by the literature they produced in Hebrew and in Greek from the Achaemenid period until around the year 200. In this lengthy period, Jews produced works of wisdom and history, novels, philosophy, poetry, and normative instruction, imitating Greek and biblical models and creating new ones, in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek.1 I begin with a historical discussion of the introduction of coin money into the Levant. Then I turn to a discussion of various properties of money reflected in ancient Jewish literature: how humans can use money to interact with the divine; the intangible things which are like money, such as virtue and scholarship; the relation- ship between money and personhood; the stability of money; the mental and spiri- tual effects of the desire for money; and the moral charge money can carry. I end with a discussion of a novel and developed theory of wealth found in a work from Qumran known as 4QInstruction or the Wisdom of Raz-Nihiyeh.

The monetary legal theory under the Talmud

Revue Internationale Des Droits De L Antiquite, 2008

Mansfield stated (at 457, Burr; 401, Eng. Rep.) that money "can not be recovered after it had passed in currency" so that "in case of money stolen, the true owner can not recover it, after it has been paid away fairly and honestly upon a valuable and bona fide consideration..." 3 Both the state and societal theories of money are discussed by Proctor, above note 2, respectively at 15 and 23.

Rabbinical perspectives on money in seventeenth-century Ottoman Egypt

The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, 2010

The sole exception is Liebermann (1989), which is a Hebrew-language work. 2 A related literature on economic analysis of Talmudic law exists. The most wellknown work in this genre is Aumann and Maschler's (1985) game-theoretic analysis of the Talmudic bankruptcy problem.

Judaism and Economics: The Link between Judaism and Economic Life

This article deals with the relationship of Judaism to economic activity. The subject is the typical approach of Jewish ethical thought, concerning the understanding of money, wealth, jobs and economic initiatives. Issues related to fundamental economic life are shown to be covered in the books that the Jewish community considers sacred. Particularly important are the Old Testament and the Talmud. Also important are references to the cultural interpretation of Judaism, including the classical works on the subject-Jacques Attali and Werner Sombart. The key concept is the subject of "wealth," the meaning of which is derived from the Bible's Book of Exodus and the Talmud. Finally, the foundations for Jewish economic thought can be expressed as the product of an embedded culture, which is founded on religion, in which property acquires ethical legitimacy. The argument is crowned with historical examples of the noble economic activity of the Jewish people, which also give evidence of the interrelatedness of religion and the proper use of wealth.

The Myth of the Medieval Jewish Moneylender, vol. I

PALGRAVE STUDIES IN CULTURAL AND INTELLECTUAL HISTORY, 2017

This book challenges a common historical narrative, which portrays medieval Jews as moneylenders who filled an essential economic role in Europe. It traces how and why this narrative was constructed as a philosemitic narrative in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in response to the rise of political antisemitism. This book also documents why it is a myth for medieval Europe, and illuminates how changes in Jewish history change our understanding of European history. Each chapter offers a novel interpretation of central topics, such as the usury debate, commercial contracts, and moral literature on money and value to demonstrate how the revision of Jewish history leads to new insights in European history.

Jews and Money: The Medieval Origins of a Modern Stereotype

Cambridge Companion to Antisemitism, ed. by Steven Katz, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022

The trope of the Jewish moneylender has taken different forms over the centuries: the Jewish "usurers" of medieval England and France, the "Shylocks" of Renaissance Italy, "Jud Süss" and the Court Jews of Central Europe, and the "Rothschilds" of 19th-century international banking. There is little empirical evidence for Jewish preeminence in moneylending. 1 Yet the association of Jews with money has been pervasive, figuring in anti-Jewish accusations from medieval expulsions to The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, from the Holocaust to Le Happy Merchant memes. This essay will trace the emergence of the stereotype in medieval Europe. The trope of the Jewish moneylender also has its philosemitic versions. For well over a century, liberal historians, sociologists, and political economists have described medieval Jews as modernizers fulfilling a special economic function: Jews provided creditthe ingredient necessary for economic developmentat a time when Christians could not or would not. Jews, in consequence, suffered a tragic antisemitic backlash. The liberal-economic narrative counters antisemitic economic stereotypes by inverting them, making the "Jewish predilection for moneymaking" a contribution to the nation. Antisemitic or philosemitic, the assumption of an association between Jews and money remains a dangerous trope, a stereotype disconnected from economic realities. Jews were neither medieval Europe's chief moneylenders nor the credit engine for emergent commercial capitalism. Jews did loan money, but the majority of professional moneylenders, money changers,

Introduction. Purchasing Power: The Economics of Modern Jewish History

Purchasing Power: The Economics of Modern Jewish History, 2015

It is perhaps no coincidence in our current age of global capitalism, when many comment upon the power of the economy and economic institutions to shape the world, that we are considering anew the larger role of the economy in Jewish history as well as the place of Jews in economic history. 1 In recent decades, the social, and then the cultural, turn in historical research pushed questions concerning Jews' economic activity to the sidelines. This does not mean, however, that economic issues themselves were in any sense marginal in the Jewish historical experience. They most certainly were not. Nor could they have been, since Jews, like all other individuals and groups in human society, had to engage with the economy in one way or another in order to survive. This last statement, banal as it may be on a superficial level, is important because it points to many of the key questions in Jewish economic history as it is beginning to be understood and practiced today. What was the significance of being Jewish in determining the forms of economic activity undertaken by Jews in different times and places? What were the relative weights of individual and group factors in that process? When did Jewishness abet the formation of commercial alliances and when did it aid in such processes? What might be meant by the use of the term "survival" from an economic I 543•60126_ch01_1P.indd 1

The Myth of the Medieval Jewish Moneylender, vol. 2

Palgrave, 2018

his book challenges a common historical narrative, which portrays medieval Jews as moneylenders who filled an essential economic role in Europe. Where Volume I traced the development of the narrative in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and refuted it with an in-depth study of English Jewry, Volume II explores the significance of dissolving the Jewish narrative for European history. It extends the study from England to northern France, the Mediterranean, and central Europe and deploys the methodologies of legal, cultural, and religious history alongside economic history. Each chapter offers a novel interpretation of key topics, such as the Christian usury campaign, the commercial revolution, and gift economy / profit economy, to demonstrate how the revision of Jewish history leads to new insights in European history.