In this presentation, Professor Julie Mell will speak on her new book, The Myth of the Medieval Jewish Moneylender, (Palgrave, 2017-8.) This book challenges a common historical narrative, which portrays medieval Jews as moneylenders who filled an essential economic role in Europe. It traces how and why this narrative was constructed as a philosemitic narrative in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in response to the rise of political antisemitism.
