>>55452252>>55472015Rewinding a little a bit, we find Jesus. A lot of historical animosity towards the Jews was because Christians believe it was the Jews (in this context, we are talking about the Pharisee who were basically the Jewish authority) who falsely accused and killed Jesus.
Fast forward to the Islamic conquests. The Muslims conquered and converted about two thirds of the Christain world which contained many of the Jewish diaspora. Spreading as far as the middle east, to Portugal and Southern France. The Muslims were slightly more tolerant of the Jews than Christians were and so the Jews preferred living under Islamic rule and thus, when Christians and Muslims fought, Jews living in Christian cities, were reported to have colluded with the Muslims and sabotaged the cities defences. Jews were also known to be more generous with donations towards Islamic rulers.
Jews during the medieval and modern early period were also heavily restricted from public life in Christendom. Basically Jews really had two career options for social advancement. One was to become a scholar or advisor to a wealthy patron (which is where the modern cultural idea of Jews placing heavy emphasis on education comes from) and the other was to become a banker. At this time, Christians were forbidden from usury (lending money with interest) but Jews weren't. So Jews disproportionately filled in the ranks of bankers and moneylenders, which I don't think I need to explain why that's not popular. Christian kings liked having Jewish bankers because generally across Europe, Jews were considered the legal property of the monarch, therefore whenever the king wanted, he could legally sieze all of the assets held in these Jewish banks. On the otherhand, it also made Jewish courtiers extremely powerful since they were bankrolling the king's armies.
So this sort of sets the stage for our modern period.
