Defense against the Attacks Leveled against the Jewish Nation in the Book Entitled On the Ghetto’s Influence on the State

Chapter IV. Demonstrates the Falsehood of the Alleged Evil Influence of Jews on the State, as Businessmen in Villages, and Also Shows Their Usefulness in the Points Omitted by the Refuted Writer as Well as Those to Which He Alludes

How can it be affirmed that the Jews live in villages without practicing professions or trades? As I indicated in chapter II, there are no professions or trades, either manual and liberal, that they do not practice. In every town in Italy doctors, lawyers, masters of various sciences, painters, musicians, tailors, carpenters, and teachers of every kind of craft abound. More abound in many islands of the archipelago, but we mention this as a passing comment as these are maritime cities, especially in the case of Corfu, where the famous Doctor Giuseppe Coen, who was named a military physician of the Most Serene Republic of Venice, lives in a fortress like every other person of the military profession. Many Jews still practice goldsmithery and every other art. In Germany and Poland, especially, there are many goldsmiths and tailors, and many work in agriculture. How many Jewish teachers are there, not only in France, Holland, and England but also in every other part of the universe? We have seen a Portuguese Jewish general and Jewish ambassadors to the kingdom of Fez and Morocco (CAM. Reg. Marocc. descriptio., p. 308, 341). In Ethiopia and Abyssinia, an Arab assured Signor Lodolfo that at the court there were some 60,000 of them (Lettre ou reflexions d’un minor, p. 63). Cardinal Commendoni (p. 64) relates that there were Jewish astronomers and doctors, even customs officers and warlords.

There is, then, a third source of constant and important profit, which is testimony to the influence of Jews in the state and which takes away the paradox of their subsistence. In this way, the malevolent consequences disappear when one speaks about their industriousness, which is called deceptive while in reality it is necessary.