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> Can you have "high culture" and cars? Yes. The centres of high culture from centuries ago were also centres of traffic and trade, they were not pleasant "li

> Can you have "high culture" and cars? Yes. The centres of high culture from centuries ago were also centres of traffic and trade, they were not pleasant "liveable" cities, indeed, they typically had huge slums. The origin of the word ghetto is a neighbourhood in Venice. Today, it's UNESCO World Heritage at all, and probably on the list of places you like to visit (and, incidentally, smaller than a Walmart) -- but 500 years ago, it was a prison for jews. Whatever future generations will recognise as high culture of our present day is very hard to predict, and I'm not at all certain that they will consider the absence of car infrastructure a key feature. Silicon Valley, being ground zero of the information revolution, certainly has a decent claim, and it's nothing if not cars all over.

thaumasiotes 10y ago
> Today, it's UNESCO World Heritage at all, and probably on the list of places you like to visit (and, incidentally, smaller than a Walmart) -- but 500 years ago, it was a prison for jews. Medieval cities had separate Jewish areas due to Jewish demand, not gentile demand.
- mseebach 10y ago
  According to the Jewish Virtual Library: “In 1516, the doges, Venice’s ruling council, debated whether Jews should be allowed to remain in the city… but their residence would be confined to Ghetto Nuovo, a small, dirty island; it became the world’s first ghetto.” http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/appeal-launched-to-save-the-worlds-first-ghetto-9866294.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/appeal-launch...
- Piskvorrr 10y ago
  [citation-needed] - unless you're talking about some alternate-history medieval Europe, your claim is patently wrong.
  - thaumasiotes 10y ago
    Try to know what you're talking about before telling other people they are "patently wrong". Here ( http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-arts-and-culture/books/165247/yiddish-ashkenazi-woodworth?all=1 http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-arts-and-culture/books/16524... ) is a discussion of a history of Yiddish (the original work being in Yiddish, I think it's forgivable to read a discussion instead): > Nineteenth-century Jewish activists, demanding rights of citizenship, created the story that the Jews had been locked in ghettos since the Middle Ages > For Weinreich, based on both the linguistic and historical evidence, there could be no doubt that up until the 18th century “the Jews wanted to be by themselves. … Separate residence (strange as this may appear in the light of present Jewish and general conceptions of rights) was part of the privileges granted the Jews at their own request” so they could worship together; provide for their own slaughterhouse, bathhouse, cemetery, and social halls; study together; run their own rabbinic courts; supervise tax collection; and when necessary, protect themselves from attacks. > Archeology supports this part of Weinreich’s argument. Befuddled tour guides in Prague struggle to explain why, given the expectation of exclusion of Jews, the city’s famous Jewish quarter, Josefov, is so central to the old town. (One misguided explanation is that the Jews were given land near the river that was too marshy for the other city inhabitants, prone to flooding and disease-bearing miasmas.) But Prague’s Josefov is not an isolated case—it is typical. Weinreich’s point is that exclusion could also be exclusivity; restrictions also came with designated privileges. In Trier, Mainz, Aachen, Cologne, Worms, and more than 100 medieval towns in Central Europe, the Jewish district was both a central and a prime location, close to the economic heart of the city. The German Bishop Rüdiger, granting a charter of the city of Speyer in 1084 wrote, “I thought that I would increase the glory of our city a thousandfold if I were to include Jews.”
    - Piskvorrr 10y ago
      "Archeology supports this part of Weinreich’s argument." Really? How? [proof by handwaving] "One misguided explanation" - misguided how? Guess what, the current Prague Jewish Quarter looks all pretty, but it is practically brand-new (1900+); what was there was the poorest part of town, a slum, if you will ("ghetto" is, ironically, too ambiguous in this context). This was razed to the ground with the exception of about 10 historical buildings; no wonder it's a "central and prime location" - now. In all - interesting, provocative, but not persuasive (wonder why you didn't choose to quote this sentence as well, hmmm: "Yet the historical, demographic, and geographical evidence does not support this entirely logical and neat story line—a fact to which Weinreich himself gives evidence in his notes.") Oh, and btw: since you chose to mention Prague, the historical Josefov was one of two ghettos. Still typical? In other words, my remark on "alternate reality" seems to have been spot-on.

thaumasiotes 10y ago

> Today, it's UNESCO World Heritage at all, and probably on the list of places you like to visit (and, incidentally, smaller than a Walmart) -- but 500 years ago, it was a prison for jews. Medieval cities had separate Jewish areas due to Jewish demand, not gentile demand.

mseebach 10y ago
According to the Jewish Virtual Library: “In 1516, the doges, Venice’s ruling council, debated whether Jews should be allowed to remain in the city… but their residence would be confined to Ghetto Nuovo, a small, dirty island; it became the world’s first ghetto.” http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/appeal-launched-to-save-the-worlds-first-ghetto-9866294.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/appeal-launch...
Piskvorrr 10y ago
[citation-needed] - unless you're talking about some alternate-history medieval Europe, your claim is patently wrong.
- thaumasiotes 10y ago
  Try to know what you're talking about before telling other people they are "patently wrong". Here ( http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-arts-and-culture/books/165247/yiddish-ashkenazi-woodworth?all=1 http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-arts-and-culture/books/16524... ) is a discussion of a history of Yiddish (the original work being in Yiddish, I think it's forgivable to read a discussion instead): > Nineteenth-century Jewish activists, demanding rights of citizenship, created the story that the Jews had been locked in ghettos since the Middle Ages > For Weinreich, based on both the linguistic and historical evidence, there could be no doubt that up until the 18th century “the Jews wanted to be by themselves. … Separate residence (strange as this may appear in the light of present Jewish and general conceptions of rights) was part of the privileges granted the Jews at their own request” so they could worship together; provide for their own slaughterhouse, bathhouse, cemetery, and social halls; study together; run their own rabbinic courts; supervise tax collection; and when necessary, protect themselves from attacks. > Archeology supports this part of Weinreich’s argument. Befuddled tour guides in Prague struggle to explain why, given the expectation of exclusion of Jews, the city’s famous Jewish quarter, Josefov, is so central to the old town. (One misguided explanation is that the Jews were given land near the river that was too marshy for the other city inhabitants, prone to flooding and disease-bearing miasmas.) But Prague’s Josefov is not an isolated case—it is typical. Weinreich’s point is that exclusion could also be exclusivity; restrictions also came with designated privileges. In Trier, Mainz, Aachen, Cologne, Worms, and more than 100 medieval towns in Central Europe, the Jewish district was both a central and a prime location, close to the economic heart of the city. The German Bishop Rüdiger, granting a charter of the city of Speyer in 1084 wrote, “I thought that I would increase the glory of our city a thousandfold if I were to include Jews.”
  - Piskvorrr 10y ago
    "Archeology supports this part of Weinreich’s argument." Really? How? [proof by handwaving] "One misguided explanation" - misguided how? Guess what, the current Prague Jewish Quarter looks all pretty, but it is practically brand-new (1900+); what was there was the poorest part of town, a slum, if you will ("ghetto" is, ironically, too ambiguous in this context). This was razed to the ground with the exception of about 10 historical buildings; no wonder it's a "central and prime location" - now. In all - interesting, provocative, but not persuasive (wonder why you didn't choose to quote this sentence as well, hmmm: "Yet the historical, demographic, and geographical evidence does not support this entirely logical and neat story line—a fact to which Weinreich himself gives evidence in his notes.") Oh, and btw: since you chose to mention Prague, the historical Josefov was one of two ghettos. Still typical? In other words, my remark on "alternate reality" seems to have been spot-on.