Ashkenz Essay

If I was a Jew living in the Medieval period and I had the opportunity to choose which Jewish community to belong to I would have chosen to belong to the 10th century Ashkenaz Jewish community. “Ashkenaz is an ancient name for Germany, however in modern Hebrew the name for Germany has been reworded” (Limmer Slide 2).
“The name Ashkenaz appears three times in the Bible and was understood to refer to an area that included the Jewish communities of the German empire and of northern France (the latter sometimes was also called “Tsorfat”)” (Efron et al. pg. 186). It is believed that the Ashkenaz migrated during the tenth century when a group of Jewish merchants made their way from Italy across the Alps and established themselves in towns of the German empire. Until the later part of the eleventh century, the most important of these northern Jewish communities was the one in Mainz. In the meantime, many communities emerged throughout different parts of Germany. As more Jews began settling in these towns, the number of Jews began to grow and some historian estimate
Money lending was what got some of the Jews associated with the royalty and nobility and some of the people resented the apparent wealth of these Jews. However, the Jews were not insured against theft of their wealth, because they could at any time be thrown out by the kings to avoid payment or charged huge sums of money in taxes. If a Jew had a decent sum of money they could be guaranteed an income through money lending, because the Christians of the area could not loan money to other Christians and charge interest. However, there was nothing against loaning money from a non-Christian with