Jews, Money, Myth: The Medieval Origins of a Modern Stereotype
Thursday, December 5, 2024 at 2:00 PM PT | 5:00 PM ET
The standard narrative of Jews as moneylenders in medieval Europe gained prominence in the 19th and 20th centuries and persists today. How did this myth emerge as a response to modern political antisemitism?
Join us on December 5 as Professor Julie Mell, author of The Myth of the Medieval Jewish Moneylender, challenges this narrative. She will explore its origins, revealing that it was not a reflection of social reality in medieval Europe but rather an outgrowth of Christian crusading and economic theology.
Julie L. Mell is Associate Professor of medieval history and Jewish history at North Carolina State University, where she is the director of Jewish Studies. She is the author of The Myth of the Medieval Moneylender I-II and co-editor of Jewish Émigrés and the Shaping of Postwar Culture. She has held fellowships from Rothschild Foundation Hanadiv (Israel), the Center for Political History (Duke University), and the American Association of University Women. Recently, she was a guest scholar at the Leibniz-Institut für jüdische Geschichte und Kultur – Simon Dubnow.
