sian
Jew is also a German, and in Russia among the masses of people the words
"German" and "Jew" also mean the same thing. Hereby hangs a tale of
interest in the history of this persecuted race. Jews are known to have
settled at the site of the present city of Frankfort in Southern Germany
as early as the third century, when that town was a trading post on the
Roman frontier. At the present time the region about Frankfort,
extending south through Alsace, contains the major part of the German
and French Jews. To this centre they flocked during the Middle Ages, and
their toleration in this region throws an interesting light on the
reasons for their persecution in other countries.

Under the Catholic polity following the crusades the Jew had no rights,
and he could therefore gain protection only through the personal favor
of emperor, king, or feudal lord. This protection was arbitrary and
capricious, but it was always based on a pecuniary consideration.
Unwittingly the Catholic Church, by its prohibition of usury to all
believers, had thrown the business of money lending into the hands of
the Jews, and since the Jew was neither inclined toward agriculture nor
permitted to follow that vocation, his only sources of livelihood were
trade and usury. The sovereigns of Europe who protected the Jews did so
in view of the large sums which they could exact from their profits as
usurers and traders. They utilized the Jews like sponges to draw from
their subjects illicit taxes. When, therefore, the people gained power
over their sovereigns, and the spirit of nationality arose, the Jew,
without his former protector, was the object of persecution. England was
the first country where this spirit of nationality emerged and the first
to expel the Jews (1290); France followed a century later (1395); and
Spain and Portugal two centuries later (1492 and 1495). But in Germany
and other parts of the Holy Roman Empire political confusion and anarchy
prevailed, and the emperor and petty sovereigns were able to continue
their protection of the Jews.

[Illustration: NORWEGIAN ITALIAN ARABIC (From _The Home Missionary_)]

The Russian people, at that time, were confined to the interior
surrounding Moscow, but even before the crusades they had expelled the
Jews. As rapidly as they conquered territory to the south from Turkey,
or to the west from Poland, they carried forward the same hostility.
There was only one country, Poland, in the centre