Antisemitism, The Jews and Your Church

How well do you know your history?

On April 10, 1516, the government of Venice officially confined the city’s Jews to one small area of the city — the first Jewish ghetto. It was called, Ghetto Vechio. This area remained the required home to the city’s Jews until Napoleon took the city in 1797 and abolished it. With Jews in Christian Europe, however, misunderstanding gave birth to fear, mistrust, and intolerance, which colored rules about and conditions in these enclaves.

Laws forbade Jews from leaving at night and were enforced by closing their gates.

It wasn't long before many cities in Europe followed the example of Venice.

At the time, the only Jews allowed to hold jobs were those who specialized in:

1) banking or money changing Money: Why? Because of course with being the root of all evil, a Christian couldn't have anything to do with money, so let the dirty evil Jews who killed Christ deal with the dirty money.

Of course, when a prince, king or bishop needed to pay for something expen…