The Jews in the Dispersion.— The fall of Judaea in the year 70 and the final defeat at the Bar Kokba War in 135 changed the destiny of the Jews altogether, and they bent their efforts to a far larger extent than before upon mer cantile pursuits. Scattered over the wide globe, they were enabled through extensive travel and good connections to establish flourishing trade everywhere. Especially in Babylonia under the dominion of the Parthians they amassed great fortunes by commerce, enjoying the favor of wise rulers. (Consult Herzfeld 1, c. 118-119; 336). Along the Phoenician sea-coast they became heirs to the Ph(enician trade and industry to such an extent that far into the Middle Ages they are found to be the chief manfacturers of Tyrian glass and of purple, as shown by Benjamin of Tudela's Travels. Ere Christianity spread its arms westward, they marched as peddlers under the shadow of the Roman eagle up the Ebro as far as Toledo and Saragossa, up the Rhine as far as Cologne and along the Danube as far as the Black Sea, car rying on an importing trade in spices and per fumes, in pearls and jewels and in costly clothes of the East. Particularly was the silk trade greatly developed, if not altogether mon opolized by them, and this accounts for ancient Jewish settlements in China, the home of silk and for the protection accorded to Jewish silk manufacturers by rulers of Sicily, France and Spain. (Consult Heyd. (Gesch. des Levanthan dels,' i, 6-9, 12; 24; 26; Mommsen, Gesch.,> v, 465-470; Herzfeld, 119; 308; Graetz, (Gesch. d. Juden,' 55, 228. 329 and else where). The same seems to have been the case with the trade in spices (Heyd, 1. c. 12, 141: Depping, Juden in Mittelalter,' p. 132; Bedarride, 'Les Juifs de France,) 46; 454). It is significant that the Jews were assessed to pay their taxes in the shape of pepper (Dep ping, 1. c. 132). The existence of black Jews in Malabar indicates the establishment of Jewish colonies in India for commercial purposes. Throughout the early Christian centuries Jews are mentioned as importing silk, spices and em broidered goods from the East to the markets of Spain and France. The flourishing period of Jewish trade came when the victorious flag of Mohammed united the East and the West into one great empire offering new incentives to industry and commerce. Jews were employed by the Moslem rulers as commissaries of the army and as financiers. Jewish merchants, partly on their own ships, made regular trips from far off China, India and Egypt to Mar seilles and Narbonne, bringing the produce of the East to the Western depots of commerce. They carried the fur and amber of Russia, brought to the Crimea or to Bohemia the shawls and embroideries of Constantinople, the spices of India and drugs of Arabia to the mar kets of Narbonne, Lyons, Cologne and May ence (Bedarride, L c. 57 and elsewhere). De scriptions of the mercantile routes taken by such Jewish traders have been preserved by Arabic geographers, showing the important position taken by them as international mediators be tween the Orient and the Occident. Jews were indeed in those centuries the merchants (mer catores or negotiatores) par excellence. This accounts for the fact that Jews were selected as ambassadors by German emperors like Charle magne and Otto I and made secretaries of finance and prime ministers by the Moslem rulers. Conversant with the languages of many countries, they had the opportunity of con trolling the market and accumulating great wealth as no other class of people (Sombart, W., 'The Jews and Modern Capitalism,' Lon don 1913; and collation of Jewish reviews in Am. Econ. Report for 1913; Heyd, 1. c. 138 142; 87; 194; 258; Jacob, 'Handelsartikel der Araber,> 1891, p. 9; Stobbe, Juden in Deutschland,) 6-7; 103; 199-200; 231; Kremer, Kulturgeschichte des Orients,' I, 188; II, 176; Lee's 'Spanish Inquisition); Kohler, K., 'Die Weltgeschichtliche Bedeutung des jiidische Handels,> in (jahrbuch fiir jiidische Geschichte and Literatur, 1909, pp. 90-107).
As Addison says in the Spectator, they were so disseminated through all the trading parts of the world that they became the instrument through which the most distant nations con versed with one another and by which mankind were knit together in a general correspon dence.
The trade in slaves was almost exclusively in their hands a long time. (Consult Heyd and Stobbe 1. c.). Some they brought from Gaul, but to a larger extent they bought slaves from the Slavonic rulers (Benjamin of Tudela, p. 111b; and Graetz, Gesch. V, 303). With the Chazar kings in the Crimea they also stood in close relationship, as is proved by the fact that the latter embraced the faith of the Jews (Graetz, 1. c. 176 et seq.; Beer, 'Clesch. des Welthandels,) 198, 229-230). The entire trade with the products of the Baltic provinces seems to have been in their hands since the time of the Roman Empire (Schuerer, 1. c., III, 18). Besides woolen and silken goods, spices, tapestry, embroideries and furs, we jewelry, gold and precious stones also monopolized by them. Nor was the commercial activity of theJews• merely confined to the exchange of goods. They reared those centres of commerce in western Europe which were afterward occupied by the rich burghers or merchant guilds who •drove them out of their possessions in order to rid them selves of their competitors or masters in the art of trading. The beginnings of the history of cities such as Narbonne and Lyons, Cologne and Mayence, Nuremberg, Regensburg, Ulm and Augsburg, London and York and dozens, if not hundreds of others, coincide as a rule with Jew ish settlements in these places, one far-sighted Jew being the pioneer of cotnrnerce whose suc cess attracted other Jewish traders, to Tender the market there a centre of commerce, finally, the growing wealth of the Jews muses the jealousy of the Christian people and be comes the cause of their oppression and ex pulsion. As Sombart (supra), Kieselbach, 'Der Gang des Welthandels,' and Roscher, 'Die Juden im Mittelalter,> in his (Anskhten der Volkswirthschaft,' II, have shown, the Jews opened new sources of wealth everywhere by creating the means and methods of communica tion for the trade, ' for which neither the peasant or farmer nor the nobleman had the capability or the understanding. Only wise
rulers, realizing the benefits conferred by the Jewish traders upon the country, encouraged these by special privileges to settle therein and develop its resources. This was done by Charlemagne and his successors in France and in Germany, by Alfred the Great and William the Conqueror and Cromwell 'in England, by King Roger of Sicily, Kasimir the Great in Poland and Sultan Bajazid in Turkey. Every where the commercial genius of the Jewish people developed the prosperity of the cities. (Consult also Lecicy, 'History of the Rise of the Spirit of Rationalism in Europe,' II, 272 273). 'They were the teachers and tutors of the commercial activity of Europe,'" says Roscher, 1. c., and no sooner did the cities feel that they could do without them than they dis possessed them of all they had acquired, though half of the houses of Paris, London or Nurem berg had been theirs, and either killed or ex-4 pelted them. But even when driven by a blood thirsty mob or by hostile guilds and by state legislation out of his original domain, the world commerce, the Jew carried his small stock of merchandise into the villages to bring, as Kiesel bath says, the elements of culture also into parts more remote from civilization, or he took up the despised work of the money lender, finally to rise to the influential position of banker and prince of finance. The whole system of modern exchange of money is, if not his invention, certainly to a large extent his work. To his financiering skill and inter national trade the banks of Amsterdam, Ham. burg and finally of England owe their existence and their success.
Results of Their Activity.-, What Jewish commerce achieved in all these lands became manifest in France after their expulsion in 1306, and in England after their expulsion in 1290, and still, more in Spain after 1492, jewish,fugitives of Spain carried the trade into Turkey and Holland and into Italian cities like Leghorn and Ancona, inst. as Poland's commer cial industry was entirely due to fugitive Jews of. Germany. (Consult Sombart, supra; Graeta, d. Juden> index, and Encyclo pedia,' s. v.). So did the New World profit by the of the Jew in the Old. Marranos built, up the trade in tobacco, and sugar in South America, and with the help of the Jews of Amsterdam for some time brought the world's commerce into the bands of Holland until Cromwell succeeded in opening England for the Jews and thus paired the way for the British trade with the West Indies. (Consult Boer, ‘Gesch, d. Weltbandels,) 211, 366; Kohler, Max, Activity, in American Colonial Commerce,' in 'Publications of the American Jewish Historical Socicty,) X, 47-63). The trade between America, Europe was, gmost entirely, in the hands 'Spanish Jew or' Marranos; fatidlies Gradis, Caceres, Mendez, Lopez and-14enrique4 had their branches and their ships in almost every part of the world. (Consult Wol f, 'Lucien, 'Menasselt ben Israel' • Gruenwald, .'Portu giesengraeber auf dentscher Erd0). Jews were instrumental in starting the East India Com.. panies (Picciotto, 'Sketches of Anglo-Jelvish History,' 134). They were largely' pioneers of commerce in North America. Jewish' merw chants (Martanos) enabled Columbus and other navigators to discover the new hemisphere and provided the new lands with grain, horses and other needs (Kayserling, Colum bus' and the article THE JEW IN 'AMERICA in this section). They possessed large tobacco, sugar and coffee plantations in Cuba, Brazil, Surinam, Curacoa, and kept up commercial con nections through navigation, partly by means of their own ships, with North America, Amster dam, Leghorn in Italy, and the Far East (Gra enwald, 1. c.) and were extensively engaged in the West Indian trade, in trade with the Ameri. can Indians 'and in developing the country west of the Ohio.
When with the era of the Reformation the systematic oppression of the Jews somewhat re laxed and they. were again allowed to pursue more honorable and profitable occupations, we find them for a century or two, up to the time of the better regulated traffic by steam rail roads, the chief visitors of the annual or semi annual fairs held at Leipzig, Frankfort on the Oder, Prague, Wilna, Novgorod and other great market places, whither they bring their clothes, silk velvet, fur, leather and other goods, for sale. On these occasions. Jewish merchants from the remote parts of the continent exchanging the products of the various lands and providing their specific districts with goods for home consumption. In some provinces of Europe, Jews became the principal dealers in cattle and the chief attendants of the cattle markets; elsewhere, as in Russia, they' deal chiefly in grain• and lumber.
The new •modes of industry finally trans formed the former peddlers in old clothes and the like into manufacturers 'of woolen, silk and leather goods. The first silk and velvet fac tories in Prussia and the factories in Austria were introduced there by Jews. Hence forth Jews monopolize this trade again in a large part of the world. Compare for the whole also the article "Commerce" in • the 'Jewish Encyclopedia,' and article in 'La Grande Encyclopaedie'.
Owing to his constant expulsion from the land inhabited and cultivated by him, whether in Palestine or in Babylonia, in Africa or in southern Europe, the commercial instinct was developed in the Jew, thus making him excel his competitors. As a skilful and far-sighted merchant he not only acquired the wealth and power needed to maintain himself amidst the perils surrounding him wherever he was treated and regarded as an alien, but he proved the most valuable promoter of civilization in the lands in which he lived, the foremost liberalizing element in the shaping and broadening of human culture.