Centuries Ago, Jews Were Farmers Like Everybody Else. Why Did They Leave the Fields?

theworldismine13

theworldismine13

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Centuries Ago, Jews Were Farmers Like Everybody Else. Why Did They Leave the Fields?
http://www.tabletmag.com/podcasts/178610/why-jews-left-the-fields

Passover, Sukkot, and Shavuot are harvest festivals that hearken back to a time when Jews were farmers just like everyone around them. But Jews as professional farmers did not endure in fact or as a stereotype. Instead, Jews moved into more highly skilled fields—as moneylenders, traders, doctors, lawyers. What happened centuries ago that caused most of the world’s Jewry to move from tilling fields to work that required them to be able to read and write? That’s the question that a pair of economists—Maristella Botticini of Bocconi University in Milan, and Zvi Eckstein of the School of Economics at ICD Herzliya in Israel, set out to answer in their recent book, The Chosen Few: How Education Shaped Jewish History, 70-1492.

What they found is surprising. The common explanations used to understand why Jews were moneylenders—that they were forbidden from owning land throughout the Muslim World and in Europe—do not hold up. Using an economics lens, Botticini and Eckstein rethink why, then, Jews landed in the professions they did as far back as the Middle Ages. From her office in Milan, Maristella Botticini joins Vox Tablet host Sara Ivry to discuss how the fall of the Temple in Jerusalem in 70 C.E. led to greater literacy among Jews, what happened to Jews who could not afford to educate their sons as per rabbinical decree, and what they will cast their gimlet eyes on next—namely, why Jews were not inventors in the Industrial Revolution.
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humble forever

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Have never seen the word gimlet in my life. Googling

"
2gimlet
adjective
Definition of GIMLET
: having a piercing or penetrating quality"
 
wheywhey

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Notes on the Podcast. Starts at the 11:30 mark. The Chosen Few.

Two thousand years ago, Jews were farmers like everyone else. During the 8th and 10th century most Jews lived in the Muslim Empire, about 80%. It was then that they left agriculture for urban, high--skilled occupations.

Two thousand years ago, Judaism transformed from a two pillar religion to a one pillar religion. Pillar one was the sacrificing of animals at the Temple and pillar two was studying Torah. After the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE/AD, Judaism was only associated with the studying and reading of Torah. Jewish children (sons) as young as six had to learn to read. Reading was a sacrifice for poor farmers. There was no financial incentive in reading.

The Muslim Empire spread from Spain to India and resulted in huge urban centers and an increase in commerce. Jews were literate, abandoned agriculture, and worked at crafts, trade, banking, and medicine.

From the 1st to the 6th century the Jewish population decreased from 5 million to 1 million. This was due to wars, massacres, epidemics, and voluntary conversions to Christianity. Christianity didn't have the burden of requiring its members to read.

When Jews arrived in Medieval Europe they were already successful bankers and merchants so discrimination doesn't explain Jewish absence in agriculture.

Aside: The authors are working on new book called The Chosen Many. In 1492 the world Ashkenazi population was half a million and the Sephardic population was half a million. At the beginning or the 20th century the Ashkenazi population was 14 million and the Sephardic population was 2 million. Many Ashkenazi Jews came to the US poor and after one or two generations had high-skilled, high-income jobs.
 
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NkrumahWasRight Is Wrong

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wheywhey said:
Notes on the Podcast. Starts at the 11:30 mark. The Chosen Few.

Two thousand years ago, Jews were farmers like everyone else. During the 8th and 10th century most Jews lived in the Muslim Empire, about 80%. It was then that they left agriculture for urban, high--skilled occupations.

Two thousand years ago, Judaism transformed from a two pillar religion to a one pillar religion. Pillar one was the sacrificing of animals at the Temple and pillar two was studying Torah. After the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE/AD, Judaism was only associated with the studying and reading of Torah. Jewish children (sons) as young as six had to learn to read. Reading was a sacrifice for poor farmers. There was no financial incentive in reading.

The Muslim Empire spread from Spain to India and resulted in huge urban centers and an increase in commerce. Jews were literate, abandoned agriculture, and worked at crafts, trade, banking, and medicine.

From the 1st to the 6th century the Jewish population decreased from 5 million to 1 million. This was due to wars, massacres, epidemics, and voluntary conversions to Christianity. Christianity didn't have the burden of requiring its members to read.

When Jews arrived in Medieval Europe they were already successful bankers and merchants so discrimination doesn't explain Jewish absence in agriculture.

Aside: The authors are working on new book called The Chosen Many. In 1492 the world Ashkenazi population was half a million and the Sephardic population was half a million. At the beginning or the 20th century the Ashkenazi population was 14 million and the Sephardic population was 2 million. Many Ashkenazi Jews came to the US poor and after one or two generations had high-skilled, high-income jobs.
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good looks on the summary
 
MrPentatonic

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wheywhey said:
Notes on the Podcast. Starts at the 11:30 mark. The Chosen Few.

Two thousand years ago, Jews were farmers like everyone else. During the 8th and 10th century most Jews lived in the Muslim Empire, about 80%. It was then that they left agriculture for urban, high--skilled occupations.

Two thousand years ago, Judaism transformed from a two pillar religion to a one pillar religion. Pillar one was the sacrificing of animals at the Temple and pillar two was studying Torah. After the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE/AD, Judaism was only associated with the studying and reading of Torah. Jewish children (sons) as young as six had to learn to read. Reading was a sacrifice for poor farmers. There was no financial incentive in reading.

The Muslim Empire spread from Spain to India and resulted in huge urban centers and an increase in commerce. Jews were literate, abandoned agriculture, and worked at crafts, trade, banking, and medicine.

From the 1st to the 6th century the Jewish population decreased from 5 million to 1 million. This was due to wars, massacres, epidemics, and voluntary conversions to Christianity. Christianity didn't have the burden of requiring its members to read.

When Jews arrived in Medieval Europe they were already successful bankers and merchants so discrimination doesn't explain Jewish absence in agriculture.

Aside: The authors are working on new book called The Chosen Many. In 1492 the world Ashkenazi population was half a million and the Sephardic population was half a million. At the beginning or the 20th century the Ashkenazi population was 14 million and the Sephardic population was 2 million. Many Ashkenazi Jews came to the US poor and after one or two generations had high-skilled, high-income jobs.
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Importance of literacy
 
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