Worthy Canadian initiative
19.05.12
I submit that Canadian journalist, Kay, in his identifying the 'three infallible signs of the crank', is primarily reflecting upon the old-world European strictures, and rules of commerce.
More specifically, the fact that Jews were banned from most professional guilds and regular occupations, being forced into the margins of gainful employment; left w/ the lowly-regarded dregs of tax and rent collecting, and the even more maligned pursuit of money-lending.
In most of Europe, from the Dark Ages on, money-lending was often directly associated w/ the practice of usury, which was seen by most 'consumers-of-the-day' as a blatantly immoral practice of charging excessive interest by mostly Jewish lenders on loans taken by non-Jews, i.e., Christians.
And here's where Will Shakespeare enters the sordid picture; namely in the person of his iconic Jewish money-lending character, Shylock, in his play,"The Merchant of Venice". Shakespeare's stereotypical-evil-Jew depiction of Shylock has unfortunately resounded thru the centuries, and was likely one of the earliest paradigms of Jewish thievery, and evil, that Dickens was well aware of when penning his novel, "Oliver Twist', creating the scheming petty criminal, Fagan.
Source: Baltimore Sun (blog)
