nerdietalk:

rgfellows:

Fun fact: the anti-Semitic stereotypes about Jews having lots of money/being greedy/cheap began in the Middle Ages thanks to Christian laws.

The Christian church began forbidding Christians from having professions that involved lending money, banking, or pawn work. It was because the church believed that money was ultimately unclean so although it was considered a necessity, Christians were instructed to deal with it as little as possible.

But someone still needed to run all of those money-based businesses. So these societies which were already run by Christian leadership basically made it a rule that these businesses had to be run by Jews since they were already “unclean”. Furthermore, due to other restrictions on Jewish people in these areas, these money-based positions were pretty much some of the only jobs Jews could legally hold.

This eventually led to numerous stereotypes involving Jews and money. And the acidity of these stereotypes grew when Christian people and leaders became resentful of the livelihood Jews were able to achieve for themselves with these jobs.

So to sum up: Christian society forces Jews to hold down money-centered jobs since, according to the church, Jews were already going to Hell. Then, once they made lives with these roles they were forced into, Jews were mocked and hated for being successful.

History major here, just want to add details to emphasize how damaging these stereotypes are, even to a modern audience. To do so, I need to quote the introduction to “The Ashgate Research Companion to Monsters and the Monstrous” by Asa Simon Mittman.

In his class, Mittman was teaching his students about the negative portrayals of Jewish people in medieval works, specifically “Demons, Saracens and Jews” which depicts them as literal monsters. Hooked noses, fangs, grimaces, the whole she-bang. He then recounts this anecdote.

“One of my students raised her hand after this discussion, with a look of confusion and anger on her face. She said that she did not understand what I was ‘trying to get at.’ She said, with a quaver of emotion in her voice, that I was making too much out of nothing, since this is what Jews look like, more or less. And anyway, she continued, the Jews are Christ-killers. She then screamed out the text of John 19:15, saying “the Jews shouted, ‘Kill him! Kill him! Crucify him!’

She was quoting, interestingly, from the “God’s Word Translation,” the most violent English translation i have been able to find, since most read ‘take him’ or ‘away with him,’ where this one reads ‘kill him.’ […] The resulting impression, conveyed by my student, was that the Jewish monster was real. The impact of these imagined monsters has all been too real, form the middle ages onward.

I was struck temporarily speechless, but as I soundlessly worked my jaw to formulate a reply, I saw in the eyes of all the other students a shocked recognition that, in essence, answers the question posed at the outset: all of this matters. All of this is relevant. I was trying to show how medieval images were designed to allow medievals to confuse one group of Jews from the first century with all Jews in their own day, and here, in twenty-first-century America, my students saw this same notion quite alive. “

All of this matters.

All of this is relevant.

kompanie-mutter:

rtrixie:

kompanie-mutter:

rtrixie:

I’m a bit sad that Pepsi didn’t decide to open up a PMC branch after buying up part of the Soviet navy in the 90’s

wait WHAT

“The USSR offered to pay Pepsi with a fleet of diesel ships. Pepsi accepted the deal because they knew that it was the only way to continue to sell Pepsi in the USSR. The agreement included 17 submarines, a cruiser, a frigate and a destroyer, which were sold to a Swedish company for scrap recycling. Those 17 submarines made Pepsi become, for a few days, the 6th largest military power in the world by number of diesel submarines. The president of Pepsi, Donald Kendall, told the National Security Adviser of USA: “We are disarming the USSR faster than you”.“

http://www.redkalinka.com/Russian-Blog/78/_The-day-Pepsi-became-a-great-military-power/

thank you for this information, I needed to know this and so did all of my followers

star-crowned-prince:

Anyway i can borrow 50 dollars to pay my phone bill? I need to keep my phone on so i can keep doing job search im hoping one calls me back this week but if my phone isn’t on i won’t be able to get the call. Its due in 5 days and i have like 10 dollars to my name

https://ko-fi.com/A7336VR