What the JQ and IQ have in common (no not that one)
Italians and Jews: one struggle
A large part of what I aim to do with online unironic JIDFing is looking at other groups and comparing them to Jews who are often blamed as particularly unique or dominating in certain roles, tendencies, movements, etc. I have done that with groups who have also been expelled at various points here, moneylending comparisons, pro immigration groups, etc. etc. In my research I have found one group that I believe is the most striking comparable group specifically regarding US history, but also in parallels before the US was even founded. I had made comparisons between Jews and Italians before specifically in my review of Kevin Macdonald’s ch.7 of Culture of Critique (found here) but even further found more parallels while reading (well more like listening to the audiobooks the only way I can find the time) The Guarded Gate by Daniel Okrent, Everyone knows the arguments over “are the Irish white” and the nefarious swarthy Swedes that Benjamin Franklin called out, but joking aside many of the luminaries of the anti immigration/eugenic movement in the US did not take a liking to either Italians or Jews specifically amongst the new waves of immigration from Old Europe. This may have been because they were the largest groups of immigrants by ethnicity (2.5 million Jews between 1880 and 1920 from a quick google search almost double that amount of Italians in the same time period). Often times the two were linked together such as Madison Grant’s bemoaning of the US becoming a “dumping ground" of Italians with their “Catholic Church under Jewish leadership” (can’t make this stuff up).1 Many men like immigration restrictionist Joseph Lee had fears of the Catholic Church considering it a “Great Evil” and didn’t want the US to turn into a “Dago” nation.2 The Catholic Church often described as the “Whore of Rome” in early American writings and F.B. Morse’s (the inventor of the Telegraph) published a rant against the danger of Catholic theocratic rule in the early Republic at least on par with those making ZOG talking points today (The Know Nothing party basically came out of this fear of Catholics led by a converted Protestant Jew ironically enough).3 Even those who weren’t prejudiced still believed that Italians and Jews specifically to be a different people than those “native” to the US.4
Personally I just wanted to highlight this specific comparison not only because its very illustrative, but also because some prominent people in the anti-Jewish movements in the US are Italian and ironically do push for greater Catholic control of the country (something that anti Italian immigration activists forewarned could happen). Not all the Italians in this movement are Catholic and obviously many of the trad cat LARPers are not Italian, but there is definitely a certain element of the culturally Italian culturally Catholic ethno-type in the US that is somewhat similar to the culturally Jewish one.
I’ll start this comparison off with both groups’ involvement in the realm of money. Both Jewish and Italian groups were involved in moneylending, merchant activities, and yes even expulsions due to these issues. In fact the Italian contribution to modern banking is probably at least as high if not higher than the Jewish one. Italians introduced double-entry bookkeeping which was invaluable to the debit and credit system and even gave us the word bank from the Italian “banco” meaning bench of board.5 The author Jack Cashill of the book Popes and Bankers states that the Italians had the reputation as being usurers even before the Jews6 (the author also discusses the role of the Knights Templar being in some ways the first “transnational” banking conglomerate arising from the crusading routes in the 12th century which had its own conspiratorial history).7 Florence in the 14th century was a hub of merchant and lending activity with the famous Medici family being the foundation of banking in the region that laid the groundwork for future banking families such as the Morgan and Rothschilds. They mainly grew their wealth from the “art of exchange” that provided the service of loaning out different currencies to be paid back and were adept at utilizing the exchange rate to their advantage (I’m not the best at explaining this kind of stuff but can read Cashill’s book if you would like page 43-44). Around this time also Bills of Exchange were in use to finance long distance trade and travel. This monetary tool was said to have been invented by Jews for nefarious purposes most notably by Frenchman Etienne Cleirac and at the same time blamed on Italians by other German historians, but eventually the idea that “the Jews” invented it was carried on into contemporary historiography by French Enlightenment thinkers (in reality there is no single point or group that invented this tool see minutes 32:38-34:50 of my video where I discuss this topic and the book Promise and Peril of Credit by Francesca Trivellato). Just a good example of both groups being blamed for something not even really “bad” but just an outgrowth of advanced economies engaging in trade that later is lambasted as crass Capitalistic greed or something stupid like that. Another interesting example of moneylending in Italy actually came from the Franciscan religious order. The Franciscans ran an institution called the Monte di Pieta (Piety Mountain) which essentially acted as a medieval pawnshop to help the poor with cash loans for items that they would pay back with interest to gain back. The Jews were upset at this because they were being beaten out in the money lending game but also the Dominican order as well who believed the Franciscans were eschewing Church Law on the use of interest, but the Monte di Pieta was upheld by Pope Leo X (even the Pope understood that some interest was needed to run any kind of financial institution).8 In terms of expulsions different money lending groups were often expelled and took aim at each other to gain power in whichever land they were operating in. If one counts the Lombards as Italians (they were a Germanic group who settled in Italy so a bit dicey on the identification) they were certainly expelled almost as much as Jews were usually for similar reasons (i.e. a ruling prince didn’t want to pay back their loans or routed out by the masses. In the case of the Jews religious difference was also very evident). Lombards and Jews were among several different European groups that vied for this niche market.9 Oftentimes, however terms like Lombards were just directed at any Italians who did money lending or trade abroad (See “Lombard Street” in London) and Cahorsins, originally hailing from Cahors in France, came to be seen as any Christian merchant (sometimes the terms could even be interchangeable really muddying any kind of clear conception of the ethnic background beyond just non-Jewish and Christian).10 Regardless merchants and moneylenders hailing from Northern Italy were often expelled in Medieval times just as Jews were.11 (Generally whenever a group got expelled for these activities another group would replace them or often that same group would just be brought back years later because people actually do need money. Shocker!)12 Also the Bond market essentially originated in Northern Italian city-states to help them pay off war debts13 adding more to Italy's history in banking and financial management. Anyways I’ll end this section with a quote from Cashill that I think encapsulates the idea pretty well: “Greenspan was Jewish. Mozilo was of Italian descent […] That the two New Yorkers would play so crucial a role in stimulating America’s economy seems somehow fitting. Jews and Italians had been responsible for so much, if not most, of the world’s credit innovations. The Medici conceived international investment banking. The Rothschilds perfected it. Salomon Brothers first securitized mortgages. Ranieri godfathered the phenomenon for Salomon and branded it. Ponzi put his name on the pyramid scheme. Madoff put his signature on the Ponzi scheme. Moses, with a little help from above, originated the ban on usury. The Italian popes enforced it.” (page 201 of Popes and Bankers).
The other major component of the comparison is immigration and assimilation to the US. Both groups contributed to the liberalization of immigration laws in the country with Danielle Battisti (author of Whom We Shall Welcome Italian Americans and Immigration Reform 1945-1965) stating that Italians were “matched only by Jewish Americans in their activism” in the “push for liberalizing the nation’s immigration and refugee policies in the postwar period”.14 While Jews had some restrictionists amongst their ranks like Samuel Gompers, the institutional Jewish community more or less was pro immigration from Europe at a time when WASPs were looking down on the unfettered immigration from the Old Country (mainly Southern and Eastern Europe). The National Liberal Immigration League was largely Jewish but also used some Italians (and other groups like Poles) to help their cause.15 Italians before the cutoff of immigration in the 1920s did write some pro immigration books (largely centered on Italian immigration like Antonio Stella’s Some Aspects of Italian Immigration) and groups like the Society for Italian Immigrants did exist, but it did take a generation or two to solidify as a group in the US to really start their immigration activism (unlike the German Jews and Irish Catholics who arrived in the mid 19th century).16 (See this article and ch. 14 of this source that showcase the NCWC and other Catholics on early immigration politics). Immigration restriction legislation was often specifically aimed at both Jews and Italians such as the Literacy Act which proponents practically admitted was an implicit way to curb migration from the two groups17 and both were seen as non white by some with Prescott Hall remarking that Jews were Asiatics and Southern Italians were actually Africans.18 Even if not seen as non white they were still not held in high regard with one WASP racialist arguing that “the brightest of the Semites are keeping our doors open to the dullest of the Aryans!”19 (essentially the talking points were all over the place much like today). As the decades went by the Italian community did eventually integrate and coalesce like the Jewish and Irish communities and organized more expansive and better run institutions arguing for liberal immigration policies. The ACIM (American Committee on Italian Migration) was one such institution that helped liberalize immigration laws in the run up to the Hart Celler act of 1965 and also tried to integrate Italians into US society whilst at the same time improving the view of Italians in America. Italians (like Jews) were seen as radicals. One Washington Post writer in 1906 declared that up to 90% of the Italians coming to the US were there to “cut throats, throw dynamite, and conduct labor riots and assassination”.20 Prominent Socialists and Anarchists like Jewish Morris Hilquist and Emma Goldman were matched in their radicalism by strike leaders like Arturo Giovanitti or would be assassins like Giuseppe Zangara (who got compared to Luigi Mangione along with other Italian American radicals in this recent online publication worth a look). Both Jewish groups and Italian groups attempted to destigmatize both groups in the American mindset away from radicalism with the Jewish communities’ successful attempt at prosecuting the Rosenbergs and the ACIM’s Letters to Italy campaign to persuade Italians in Italy to not vote for the Communist party in the 1948 election (and other attempts to distance Italian identity away from Fascism as well I cover this in my video on Kevin Macdonald here roughly min 31:50-33:00). Other specific figures could be pointed to like Edward Corsi who advocated increasing quotas for refugees in the 1950s, Romano Mazzoli of the famous Simpson Mazzoli act that first gave amnesty to illegal Mexican migrants, and even the posthumous Pope Francis (born in Argentina to Italian immigrants) who was well known for his pro immigration stances which obviously affected Catholic Church politics in the US as well. Easily the same thing can be done with pro Immigration Jewish individuals but no need to Barbara Spectre post everyone has seen all the memes (as misleading as many of them are)
(mandatory picture of La Guardia half Jewish half Italian NYC Mayor)
The process of just cherry picking names of people from certain ethnicities is rather dubious, but it can be done to make a point. Unlike JQers I don’t cast aspersion or ascribe ulterior motives to groups or individuals based on what they advocate, but rather take them at their word as true believers in what they preached and for reasons that whilst I may disagree are logical and usually come from good intentions. There is some interesting overlap and tendencies with every group and Italians and Jews are a good case study of that with both having moneyed backgrounds as well as being part of immigrant waves to the US. I could probably write some similar pieces on comparisons between Jews and Chinese or Jews and Armenians, but I think you get the gist. Essentially the same lens the JQers use to look at Jews can be pointed at any group including ones they may not want to be pointed at.
Daniel Okrent, The Guarded Gate (New York: Scribner, 2019), 208.
Ibid., 41.
Ibid., 42.
Ibid., 137.
Jack Cashill, Popes & Bankers (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2010), 41.
Ibid. 41.
Ibid., 33-37.
Ibid., 49-51.
James Parkes, The Jew in the Medieval Community (New York: Sepher-Hermon Press, 1976), 328.
https://scispace.com/pdf/banishing-usury-the-expulsion-of-foreign-moneylenders-in-3amwslytei.pdf (pgs 16-18 Banishing Usury by Rowan Dorin)
Ibid., iii.
Parkes, 174-175.
Cashill, 78.
Danielle Battisti, Whom We Shall Welcome (New York: Fordham University Press, 2019), 9.
Okrent, 108-110.
Ibid., 100.
Ibid., 65-66.
Ibid., 158.
Ibid., 110.
Ibid., 99.
Somehow you did not finish the piece by noting that the Ashkenazi have been found to be of substantially Italian descent! Largely on the distaff side.
Ashkenazi Jews and Southern Italians/Sicilians are extremely genetically similar. Modern studies suggest they are basically equal proportions of European vs MENA admixture.