3 ms·

Another indication that Columbus was part of the Jewish community is that the Jewish financiers Luis de Santángel and Gabriel Sánchez advanced interest-free loa

• toyg 2y ago
  That's actually a point against: Jewish financiers would have expected interest, surely. It's Catholic ones who had to loan without interest.
  • amirhirsch 2y ago
    You are not logic-ing correctly. The financiers were Jewish. Jews do not charge interest to other Jews; if Columbus were not Jewish they would have charged interest. This is written in Deuteronomy 23:20-21 as well as Leviticus and Exodus and also discussed by Maimonides
    • HKH2 2y ago
      > Jews do not charge interest to other Jews Even now?
      • qingcharles 2y ago
        Yes. Similarly with Muslims too. It makes getting financing for things that need loans (e.g. houses) trickier and sometimes open to exploitation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riba https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riba
        • 6stringronin 2y ago
          Except Islam dictates not taking interest from anyone, even though institutions try some not so clever work a rounds that end up being interest rebranded.
      • amirhirsch 2y ago
        Yes. There are many Jewish lending organizations designed around the principle that loaning money to establish a new business is the highest form of charity (see Maimonides 8 levels of giving). For example, there is a 127-year-old organization based in San Francisco that offers loans up to $50,000. The expectation is once someone establishes themselves they will contribute back to the lending organization. The workaround to halachic rules of interest that is applied in Israeli banking is equity co-ownership where the lender is paid back for their ownership shares at an established interest rate; the term for this is called “heter iska.”