82 • cHAPTeR 2
crafts. Their fathers only found before them commerce and oc-
cupations in finance and commerce. They thus excelled in them
[these fields] to the point that these became a talent passed from
one generation to the next within the nation.^149Moyal’s apologetic defense of Jews’ disproportionate involvement in
finance and commerce points to the history of restrictions on Jewish
professions, beginning in the medieval period.
Al- Khalidi, in contrast, contends that the Jewish inclination toward
commerce began long before the Middle Ages; indeed, this phenome-
non already existed “in antiquity in egypt and Babylonia” and resulted,
it would seem, from Jews’ own preferences and interests. In Babylo-
nia, the Jews “worked in usury and money changing and monopoly”;
under the Islamic kingdoms, the Jews “amassed great wealth and they
ascended to the highest salaries in the country”; in early modern Italy,
“they worked in large trade and the sea trade and they amassed great
wealth, which they hoarded. They were skilled in the works of the
bank, and the production of loans and money- changing.” Al- Khalidi’s
emphasis on Jews’ disproportionate presence in finance extends into
his own period. “It is rare for Jews in Russia to work in agriculture and
farming,” he explains, “because of their disinclination and unwilling-
ness to do it and because of the prejudice of the laws that deal with
their rights. Rather, they live mainly from commerce, then from man-
ufacture. They are superior to the christian in commerce because of
their small expenses and [the fact that they are] content with [having]
very little.”^150 Like Moyal, al- Khalidi acknowledges, at least in the case
of nineteenth- century Russia, the impact of laws that limit the areas in
which Jews can seek their livelihoods. However, the first of the two
explanations al- Khalidi offers for the Jews’ engagement in commerce
is their own “disinclination and unwillingness” to participate in other
fields. While he notes the legal restrictions on Jews’ economic activity,
they are secondary.
An Ambivalent Assessment
of (Russian) AntisemitismA close reading of this manuscript suggests that al- Khalidi was strug-
gling with himself, or with his sources, in trying to account for the
condition of the Jews. On the one hand, he is acutely aware of and
(^149) Mūyāl, at-Talmūd, 77– 78.
(^150) al- Khālidī, “as- Sayūnīzm, ay al- masʾala aṣ- ṣahyūniyya” [copyist version], 28.