Jews were frequently proficient in many trades and crafts, but because the relevant guilds excluded them, they often had to resort to financial dealing and banking for the courts of princely rulers. Trades people also treated them as economic rivals with allegiance to a “different “ culture.
Because Jews, even “converted” Jews pursued a different life-style from others in Christianised Europe their lack of conformity engendered suspicion, which was given some substance by the Jews’ self-induced exclusivity and ghetto mentality. Christians in medieval Europe rigidly observed its three main celebrations and its numerous saints’ and holy days, while the Jews proclaimed their dissonance in their feasts,- Passover, Weeks, Tabernacles, Trumpets, the day of Atonement, Purim and Hanukka. The Jewish observance of the Sabbath rest and the evident work and business activity on the first day (Sunday) provoked more discord between them and their host societies.
Resentment of the Jews’ competence in finance and money-lending, and their association,- and even employment,- with many ruling houses in medieval Europe as “court Jews” caused a vague distrust of Jews among the poor in society.
The old resentments against the Jews grew into a nameless fear of their power and influence, prompted by a feeling of inferiority and impotence because of the Jews’ remarkable successes and survivals through many centuries of suffering, pogroms and expulsions. Their many accomplishments in the realms of commerce,finance,medicine, the arts, science, philosophy, economics, and a general acuity in the reasoning processes,- itself the outcome of centuries of close study of the scriptures and rabbinic writings,- all these factors aroused an envy and a subconscious fear of a “Jewish ascendancy “ in late medieval Europe. This phobia found expression in the myths on which the Protocols of the Elders of Zion were founded.
Jews in the 19th. century came into view in a new light: they were then seen as a threat to the racial purity of the Nordic or Teutonic peoples of Germany and Austria, where an “Aryan myth “ was voiced by some writers. The Jews were considered to be “Orientals” who would weaken the purity of “Aryan blood”. This had some resemblance to the fear which arose among the Spanish nobility in the 16th.century because of the presence of alien blood traits in society. The emphasis on a racial dissimilarity was supported by a form of social Darwinism, which upheld the theory that the Teutonic peoples had evolved as the superior race over many generations.
A strange feature of this so-called racial difference between Jews and northern Europeans was the physiological distinction which was thought to exist between them , coupled with with medieval fantasies that the Jews were lecherous and emanated a distinct smell ,- the “foetor Judaicus.”
After the gradual emancipation of the Jews from their civil disabilities in the 19th. and early 20th. centuries they achieved a new status of equality. Many enterprising Jews became socially mobile and aroused some resentment; they were seen as the latest parvenues. Despite this, many Jews plied their trades in lowly and despised positions.
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