Page 31 - The Track Of The Jew Through The Ages - Alfred Rosenberg

Alfred Rosenberg

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they reached their old level of influence again. And, as in
Alexandria, the Jew lived from a lively intermediary trade in Cyrene,
Ethiopia (where a Jew was apparently the treasurer of the Queen
Candace - Acts 8:27), in Arabia, round the Black Sea, and on the
Greek islands, where they came to the fore especially in the slave
trade.
In short, the Jews followed from historical times the classical
sentence ofthe Talmud, tractate Jebamot, fol.66a: "Make 1 00 florins
in trade that you may enjoy meat and wine daily, but gain 100 florins
in farming and there is hardly salt and vegetables".
And when Rabbi Eleazar saw a field on which cabbages
were planted on a patch along its breadth, he said: "Even if one
wished to plant cabbages along your length, commerce is better
than you". When Rab once walked between ears of corn and saw
that they swayed back and forth, he said: "Keep swinging, commerce
is preferable to you".
Usury and deception were from the beginning the order of
the day; one reads with interest the Prophets who did not tire of
complaining about these characteristics. Even the repeated
exhortations to honesty of the Talmud certainly do credit to the
preacher but show clearly that they were not listened to. (Besides,
they refer only to Jews among themselves). And when it is demanded
that one should not make the weights of metal, since this wears out
(!), but of hard stone or glass, and one cannot make it of salt, 25
because there it can be eaten away, these commands are not devoid
of a certain humour and agree with Hosea when he says: "Canaan
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has deceptive scales in its hand; it likes to cheat" (12:7).
Now, if one takes up the travel descriptions of different
ages, one encounters the ever-repeated phenomenon that the
inhabitants of all countries where Jews were found in large numbers
are full of complaints against the fraudulent trade and the
insupportable usury of the Jews. And when Jews and blind philo-
Semites are ready to explain all this as mere envy, that is hoping
24
Jost, Judische Geschichte, Vol.4, p.230. [Isaak Markus Jost (1793-1860) was a
German Jewish historian].
25
Herzfeld, p. 138
26
[See Hosea 12:7]
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