WI Jews and Roma/gypsies switched places?

fashbasher

Banned
These are two pan-European ethnic groups originating in part in the Middle East and Asia that were in medieval and early modern times associated with small business - moneylending for the Jews and smithing and traveling sales for the Roma. Let's say that for certain reasons (the Catholic Church stamps out Jewish moneylending by making their own bank and justifying interest by investing it in Church causes, while the Roma are able to form retail and trading guilds, for instance) the Jews remain outcasts while the Gypsies become prosperous merchants and industrialists. Do you still see a Zionist movement, and conversely do you see a Roma "Zionism" towards Northern India?
 

Brunaburh

Gone Fishin'
No Roma Zionism, the Gypsies didn't know they were from India until they were told so in the 20th century, they have no cultural imperative to return to *Zion. Zionism as return to "Israel" has roots in Jewish scripture, particularly the Exile in Babylon, which is why it was such a powerful meme.

It's hard to see the Roma fulfilling the mercantile/financial requirements of the segment of the Jewish population that engaged in this business. It is important to note that all over Europe Jews engaged in artisanal trades and farming, but that these populations either remained parochial until the late 19th century (Ashkenazi) or converted to Christianity (Sephardi). Those who were more urban and mobile, controlled portable wealth, and were linked into trading networks were able to retain their Jewish identity more readily, and were able to enter new territories or recolonize territories from which Jews had fled. That is why the idea of the Jew as merchant became widespread, even though most Jews were nothing of the sort.

In order to make the Roma fulfill this role we need to make them urban, which they largely weren't. We need them to control portable wealth as well as portable skills, which is doable for goldsmiths. We need them to be literate, which they really, really weren't. We need them to be excused from bans on usury, which is difficult as they need to be Christian to work in Europe. We also need them to plugged into a trade network which crosses the Muslim/Christian frontier, which is possible as in Balkan Gypsies can be Muslim and Christian while recognizing their common Romichality. We also need them to be not considered natural slaves who can be treated as chattels across the Balkans.

So, not a total nix, but lots to consider.
 
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I don't see a Roma "Zionism" arising with all else equal because the Roma do not (to my knowledge) maintain a religious connection to Northern India, instead adapting the religions of the settled peoples around them while adding a few Roma specific myths and rituals (for example, identifying as the followers or rescuers of St. Mary Magdalene in southern France). On the other hand, Jews who are recognizably Jewish compared to the people of OTL would maintain a connection to Israel. There definitely is a niche for tinkering nomads in the Middle East since Roma do live there IOTL, so there is definitely an opening for a Zionist movement to move in, though I don't know if people who have taken a nomadic lifestyle would really be initially interested in founding an ethno-state.
 
No Roma Zionism, the Gypsies didn't know they were from India until they were told so in the 20th century, they have no cultural imperative to return to *Zion. Zionism as return to "Israel" has roots in Jewish scripture, particularly the Exile in Babylon, which is why it was such a powerful meme.

It's hard to see the Roma fulfilling the mercantile/financial requirements of the segment of the Jewish population that engaged in this business. It is important to note that all over Europe Jews engageds in artisanal trades and farming, but that these populations either remained parochial until the late 19th century (Ashkenazi) or converted to Christianity (Sephardi). Those who were more urban and mobile, controlled portable wealth, and were linked into trading networks were able to retain their Jewish identity more readily, and were able to enter new territories or recolonize territories from which Jews had fled. That is why the idea of the Jew as merchant became widespread, even though most Jews were nothing of the sort.

In order to make the Roma fulfill this role we need to make them urban, which they largely weren't. We need them to control portable wealth as well as portable skills, which is doable for goldsmiths. We need them to be literate, which they really, really weren't. We need them to be excused from bans on usury, which is difficult as they need to be Christian to work in Europe. We also need them to plugged into a trade network which crosses the Muslim/Christian frontier, which is possible as in Balkan Gypsies can be Muslim and Christian while recognizing their common Romichality. We also need them to be not considered natural slaves who can be treated as chattels across the Balkans.

So, not a total nix, but lots to consider.

All very good points, though I will also add that the premise in the OP is sort of based in false assumptions, because Jews were also involved in being "tinkers" (goldsmiths and tinsmiths and merchants in small goods) in much of Europe.

In fact, now I'm wondering if Jews and Roma ever experienced any rivalry over this sort of work. Or, I guess, how they interacted, more broadly.
 

Brunaburh

Gone Fishin'
All very good points, though I will also add that the premise in the OP is sort of based in false assumptions, because Jews were also involved in being "tinkers" (goldsmiths and tinsmiths and merchants in small goods) in much of Europe.

In fact, now I'm wondering if Jews and Roma ever experienced any rivalry over this sort of work. Or, I guess, how they interacted, more broadly.

I don't know as much as I'd like to about early modern Jewish peddlers/tinkers, do you happen to have any recommendations on this? It is very clear that there was much more going on than our modern stereotype of Jews as ghetto-bound bankers.
 
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Brunaburh

Gone Fishin'
BTW, Polari and Rottwelsch cryptolects both include Yiddish and Romany elements, there was definitely underworld contact between Jews and Gypsies.
 
I don't know as much as I'd like to about early modern Jewish peddlers/tinkers, do you happen to have any recommendations on this? It is very clear that there was much more going on than our modern stereotype of Jews as ghetto-bound bankers.

I mean, not really. Tinkers by their very nature aren't written about very much, even up through the 20th century. You can probably find references to it in any source about shtetl life (which is not to say that Jewish tinkers were restricted to the Pale).
 

Brunaburh

Gone Fishin'
Uh that is very -not- what Sephardi and Ashkenazi mean.

I don't think you understand what I mean, if that quote is directed to me. What I'm saying is that Sephardi Jews who farmed or exercised trades tended to convert to Christianity whereas Ashkenazi people who did the same lived on Shtetls in the middle of nowhere, or were not particularly noted in history.

BTW, polite to quote.
 
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It's difficult to imagine, as replicating the specific situation of the Ashkenazi Jews is tough.

The way it worked for them in OTL was (and I'm simplifying):

1. Jewish groups entered Italy at some point during Classical Antiquity, possibly the late Roman Empire (Rabbinical Judaism forms in about the 300-600 AD, so this sets the upper limits on time depth).
2. As Europe Christianizes, and in the post Roman period, prohibitions of lending to brother adherents in religion become more important. A Jew cannot lend to a Jew with interest, and a Christian, under the law of Western Catholicism, cannot lend to a Christian with interest.
3. During the post Roman early and high Middle Ages we see expansion of urbanisation or civilization (towns, etc.) across the North European plain. (For reasons that are not totally understood) This interacts with 3 to create the problem of a shortage of lenders for Christian townsmen and aristocrats.
4. But! Christianity is *relatively* tolerant of Judaism as a common descendant of the parent Hebrew religion, without any proselytizing character (relative to how tolerant Judaism, Christianity, are to everything else). And Jews are allowed to lend to Christians.
5. So a relatively small group is poised at the right time to enter the business of credit, when no other group is really in a position to do so.

Though the business is quite hard - its involves high risk lending, and Jews were frequently subjects of disappropriation and brutal persecution - this ultimately leads to a quite spectacular era of population growth, as a small community of hundreds of members grows to the millions, in a trajectory unprecedented in Europe across the same time span.

This advantage ultimately recedes by the late Middle Ages and early Modern Age, when in most of Europe changes in religion allow and favour Christian bankers and lenders, though the Ashkenazi persist in numbers in the east.

This isn't the outcome of any endogenous cultural characteristics of Rabbinical Judaism; it's all timing, and the relationship with Catholic Christianity.

The problems for the Roma in replicating this are:

A. They arrive too late. They are unlikely to arrive until the 14th century, which is too late to become established in this role, and even then are not seen in Western Europe until the 15th to 16th centuries, which is far too late.
B. They don't have any special religious exemptions on lending. They generally convert (or are made to convert) to local forms of Christianity, and then the same religious law applies.
C. Finally, even if there was a special exemption for Roma Christians to lend money at interest, its then not likely that they would persist as a minority. The Roma in Eastern Europe show much more intermarriage with Eastern European people, relative to the time of their introduction to Europe.

(Expanding on C: For European Jews it (mostly) seems like the founding population had some European ancestry then very little (almost no) intermarriage during the era of high population growth. While the Roma look like they have continuously intermarried with Southeastern European populations, albeit still at a relatively low rate, and to have "taken on" quite a bit more ancestry from local populations relative to the time they have lived in Europe.

Difference being that the Ashkenazi Jews isolation (less intermarriage) is likely due to religious reasons, which we see in different groups practicing Rabbincal Judaism dispersed across the world, from India to Turkey to North Africa (where they hold no special economic status). The Roma are Christian co-religionists, and the lesser degree of isolation as a group is mostly due to stigmatization.)

With a much more prosperous Roma niche, I would guess this would probably not have happened, and they would cease to be a separate ethnic group.)
 
What religoin would they have? If Christianity, (of the proper sort, in the eyes of whatever state they are in) they are likely to be swallowed up by the local population through marriages. If Islam, they are not allowed in Europe outside the Turkish occupied Balkans. If something non-Abrahamic? Yah, they won't be allowed around. I'd say Jews were 'tolerated' to an extent because of their religoin, where they were seen as stubborn, but at least not pagan or anything. Gypsies (since people originally used the term because they thought they were from Egypt) is less likely to have negative connotations here. Unless, you know, they are treated like Jews were. As for Gypsies taking the place of Jews to be wealthy industrialists... I don't see that happening. No banking, no ownership of land allowed, no finances. Besides, I think that people often put too much focus on Jews being rich or successful at times. It was a higher percentage than the general population in some Western European countries, but that was in part due to the massive amount of poor people in England, Germany, etc. I am not saying that is WHY some Jews got rich, I am saying that is what skewed the statistics a bit. Besides, by that's point nationalism was kicking off, and many counted as Jews either were irreligious or were going with the pull of nationalism that kinship was more important than religion.


Anyways, if we have Gypsies as urban populations taking, like they did IOTL, the religoin of the areas they lived in, I doubt there would be many around going by the term today. Though perhaps some other semi-nomadic group is given the name or stereotypes. There were plenty of people traveling in parts of Europe, moving wherever they was food and work. Not sure if that only came after feudalism started to drop, with people no longer legally tied to land to act as de facto sharecroppers.
 
BTW, Polari and Rottwelsch cryptolects both include Yiddish and Romany elements, there was definitely underworld contact between Jews and Gypsies.

Not necessarily in the underworld. there were Jewish... door-to-door salesmen isn't the right word, but they too walked on the streets and sold stuff to people, and on their wanderings, they also met Roma.
 
What? I never heard of that.
Perhaps he is thinking of Conversos, who only pretented to convert to Christianity. I think that is what the term meant. However any people referred to as Sephardi Jews are likely those who left Iberia rather than do that. Looking it up, it seems the Sephardi/Sephardic also include those who converted to Judaism as practiced by these groups, or Jews who adopted their liturgy and traditions.
 
Yeah, that would make sense. Were they many who converted to Judaism?
I have my doubts. Might be some undecided people joined them but I think it would have been mostly through marriages, and for a limited amount of time. The Spanish and Ottomans were not very supportive of apostates.
 

Brunaburh

Gone Fishin'
What? I never heard of that.

Sorry, perhaps we are talking at cross purposes. I'm using Sephardic to include pre-expulsion Iberian populations, the majority of whom converted to Christianity between 1390-1510. The ones who left, and are the ancestors of today's sephardim, were those more likely to be involved in urban activities involving portable wealth or skills and contacts in Islamic-controlled areas or the Netherlands. The ones who were farmers and artisans tended to convert.
 

Brunaburh

Gone Fishin'
I have my doubts. Might be some undecided people joined them but I think it would have been mostly through marriages, and for a limited amount of time. The Spanish and Ottomans were not very supportive of apostates.

I would think the most common scenario would be adoption of gentile children and, in Italy, freeing of slaves.
 
Ok sorry, I thought you meant Sephardim in general, that makes much more sense.
EDIT: Re: conversion, I think they could also mean of other Jewish groups? I know that it was semi common for Sephardic norms to become dominant in places where they migrated. Also, I think conversion did happen, if rarely, because there are legal rulings on it.
 
I would think the most common scenario would be adoption of gentile children and, in Italy, freeing of slaves.
I imagine Jews would have been banned from adopting Christians, even if it meant the children were left as street urchins or sold to North Africa or something. I imagine there would be something tinged with the Blood Libel if a Christian (They baptised kids soon after birth, meaning basically all non-Jewish kids in Europe) child had any blood spilled from circumcision. Which they would. That is why it is done early on when the nerves aren't as advanced. Or something.
Ok sorry, I thought you meant Sephardim in general, that makes much more sense.
EDIT: Re: conversion, I think they could also mean of other Jewish groups? I know that it was semi common for Sephardic norms to become dominant in places where they migrated. Also, I think conversion did happen, if rarely, because there are legal rulings on it.
I did mention that many other Jews took up their tradition. I think the definition including those who converted simply meant that the Sephardic saw them as kindsmen and that there was no generations long term just because a great-great-grandparent had been a Gentile. And looking up Mizrashi Jews (I was taking a quick glance at the many types of Jews over the millenia) it seems some of them consider themselves Sephari do to tradition and practices. Mizrashi is for Middle Eastern Jews, Sephardi for Iberian, Beta Israel for Ethiopia, and Askenazi for the HRE, Poland, etc. Due to rabbincal traditions and the different living styles needed in different climates, it is understandable their would be differences. More off the 'we don't have this kind of food here or it is too hot/cold for these clothes' things than anything major on religious doctrine. Each group moved around a bit and wasn't exactly homogeneous, due to no centralized authority. Plus some groups had classical snobbery that happened in any groups, such as some Jews thinking the Yiddish speaking communities in Poland were backwards, while others saw the ghetto of Prague as stagnated (Well, the Ring of Fire series says so), and plenty thinking... Well, I imagine a lot of the stuff comes down to urban/rural divides and normal prejudices most groups in the world have about their own being the best.
 
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