The Financial Crisis = Bad For Jews
October 10th 2008
As many of you know, the US, and much of the Western civilized world is going through disastrous financial crises. I believe the situation has a number of implications for Jews, and by looking into history, we can learn a lot about what to expect, and hopefully make wise decisions based on what we learn.
The Great Depression
First, the crisis from my view: Call me crazy, but I saw this coming for months. I knew the US was taking a nose dive of magnitude proportions. I looked around me, read/watched what the media was saying, and talked to many Americans from different walks of life. When your commander in chief hasn’t got much of a background of sophistication, your country is irresponsibly allocating hundreds of billions of dollars a year for a war with no clear end in sight, and the most powerfully rich in the country care only for themselves (ie. Enron, Sub-prime crisis, Walmart employment practices), what are the likely outcomes? Many comparisons are being made to the Great Depression of 1929. While that period of time is great to read about, I think we’re dealing with a bit of a different situation this time around. For one, the global economy that exists in 2008 simply did not in 1929. I believe we can look to a few other times in history for insight:
In Jewish history, the Jews have done best in societies with stable governing bodies, a stable population, and stable economic markets. After the destruction of the 2nd temple, 90% of Jews lived in Babylonia (modern day Iraq) from the year 70 CE until some point in the century of 1000 CE. There, the Romans allowed Jews an autonomous governing body led by a Nasi and Reish Gelusa (a prince, and head of exile, called the exilarch in English). Here, the Jews fared quite well, as we see they had a very stable governing body.
Jews then began to emigrate to Spain (and soon after to France) due largely to economic issues which I won’t go into here. There, Jews experienced a “Golden Age” where Jews became the heads of the banking system, leaders of the Spanish military, leading physicians, poets, and even ran the finances for the Spanish government. That period of Jewish history ended in disaster in the 1400’s with the Spanish Inquisition, and ultimately in 1492, when King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella decreed that all Jews leave Spain immediately (the Alhambra decree).
From Spain, Jews emigrated largely to Germany and Eastern Europe (Poland, Lithuania, Russia), and portions to Turkey, Palestine, and other areas. The Western European Jew excelled greatly in the British empire and in Germany, while the Eastern European Jews were by large forced to live in Jewish ghettos (see the Pale of Settlement).
The Cossack rebellion of Ukraine in 1648 - 1649, referred to by Jews as Tach V’Tat (Hebrew for the Jewish years 5408 - 5409) utterly destroyed Jews. Another example of how uprising led to disaster for the Jews. I recommend reading about it (unless you don’t want nightmares).
In the 19th and 20th centuries, the Jews of Russia were absolutely destroyed by Czarist decrees, and later by the communist revolution, led by the Bolshevicks and Menshevicks. This is a perfect example of how instability affected Jews, as the Russian Civil War claimed over 100,000 Jewish lives. Fast forward to modern day Germany, where not 2 generations ago, as a result of extreme economic and political upheaval, Jews, who were considered part of the German aristocrat, were marched into cattle cars, and transported into mass slave labor and killing camps, destroying millions of Jews.
Why do I bring all these up? We are living in very historic times here in America. America is going through a turmoil of which we have seen only the beginnings of, and due to the global economy that exists, the entire Western world is being hit because of it. As Jews, we need to keep our eyes open for a few things:
In times of trouble, many Jews dealt with the problems by becoming so to speak “more Catholic than the pope.” In Spain, a prominent leader of the Spanish Inquisition was Tomas de Torquemada - a Jew. In 1832 Torquemada’s tomb was ransacked, and his bones stolen and burned.
In Russia, the Yevsektsiya was the Jewish communist faction that took upon them the responsibility of destroying the Jewish religion (as well as all religions). They felt they could be more communist than the Bolshevicks, and would obviously be rewarded for such. They made sure people lit fires in their homes on the Shabbat, they checked Jewish babies for circumsition, they waited at shuls to ensure they were not being used for Torah study. They were eventually executed entirely by the Bolshevicks.
In Germany, the Judenrat were the Jews that represented the Jewish ghettos and slave labor camps. The Germans forced them to enforce Jewish slave labor, and other horrific brutalities. They felt at the very least, they and their families were be spared. They were wrong.
There are many other examples of this in Jewish history (read up on Moses Mendelssohn and Edwin Montagu for 2 such examples).
That brings us to America. Last week, Jon Stewart slammed Jews in Congress for not coming into work on Rosh Hashana to be able to re-vote on the bailout plan. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a huge Jon Stewart fan, but I saw his anti-Jewish rant as unfortunate. Now go look at October 9th’s New York Times. The front page ran a huge article that continued to an entire sub-page about how much of the financial crisis is the fault of Alan Greenspan. If that isn’t enough, watch these videos, which point out high profile Jews of yesteryear like Rockefeller and Rothschild as having been robbing America blind from day 1: http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_14910.cfm
My advice: Let’s not act more American than Americans, and forsake our heritage and traditions (or as they said in Germany, “We are Germans of the Mosaic Persuasion”).
The US pulled out of the 1929 depression by selling arms to Britain, France, and Russia during WW II, and later by the employment that joining the war added to the American economy. Let us hope they have a different plan in mind this time.