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The Greedy Jew is a Dead Horse Trope about Jewish people being greedy and malicious. The stereotype exists for a number of reasons, but mainly derives from trade restrictions placed upon Jews in medieval and early modern Europe. Jews weren't allowed to join trade guilds or own land in most countries, which led most Jewish men to enter professions that didn't require guild membership such as banking. Since Jewish holy law doesn't forbid Jews to charge interest, at least to non-Jews (it's complicated), Jews became associated with usurious and often exploitative banking procedures -- even though Christian bankers such as the de Medicis did the same thing.

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  • Greedy Jew
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  • The Greedy Jew is a Dead Horse Trope about Jewish people being greedy and malicious. The stereotype exists for a number of reasons, but mainly derives from trade restrictions placed upon Jews in medieval and early modern Europe. Jews weren't allowed to join trade guilds or own land in most countries, which led most Jewish men to enter professions that didn't require guild membership such as banking. Since Jewish holy law doesn't forbid Jews to charge interest, at least to non-Jews (it's complicated), Jews became associated with usurious and often exploitative banking procedures -- even though Christian bankers such as the de Medicis did the same thing.
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  • The Greedy Jew is a Dead Horse Trope about Jewish people being greedy and malicious. The stereotype exists for a number of reasons, but mainly derives from trade restrictions placed upon Jews in medieval and early modern Europe. Jews weren't allowed to join trade guilds or own land in most countries, which led most Jewish men to enter professions that didn't require guild membership such as banking. Since Jewish holy law doesn't forbid Jews to charge interest, at least to non-Jews (it's complicated), Jews became associated with usurious and often exploitative banking procedures -- even though Christian bankers such as the de Medicis did the same thing. Thus works written or set in these time periods would show Jews being evil and receiving Karmic Deaths for it. Eventually someone took it to the next level and wrote a conspiracy theory of Jews controlling the banking system. Believe it or not, even the garden variety of anti-Semite didn't buy that lie, but the Nazis weren't your garden variety anti-Semites and they turned up the stereotype to eleven. As you might guess, anything used to justify Nazism fell out of favor after roughly 1945, which is why you don't usually see this trope being played straight in the West any more - except by the odd neo-Nazi or 4chan poster. Though, sometimes the stereotype is misguidedly used against centralized banking, which caused many troubles (Without necessarily having Jewish people involved). These days, it's been replaced with the Lighter and Softer All Jews Are Cheapskates, which even Jews are willing to joke about. Unfortunately, most of these old stereotypes are now applied to Arabs in more modern media (and the trope itself has yet to die in media from the Arab world). There's also a lesser-known (at least in the West) Armenian variant to this trope. Armenians were known as the Jews of the Middle East for a long time (until Jews came back to the Middle East). The trope was used to justify a genocide against them too, before the Holocaust happened. The Scots have gotten this treatment in fiction as well, though they're still an Acceptable Target. Of course, carries Unfortunate Implications. Compare The Scrooge, Corrupt Corporate Executive. Examples of Greedy Jew include:
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