User:DGG/History of Jews in American banking
American Jews have played a major role in American finance or "Wall Street", both at investment banks and investment funds.[1] German Jewish bankers began to assume an important role in American finance in the 1830s when government and private borrowing to pay for canals, railroads and other internal improvement increased rapidly and significantly. Men such as August Belmont (Rothschild's agent in New York and a leading Democrat), Philip Speyer, Jacob Schiff (at Kuhn, Loeb & Company), Joseph Seligman,Philip Lehman (of Lehman Brothers), Jules Bache, and Marcus Goldman (of Goldman Sachs) illustrate this financial elite.[2] These families and the firms which they controlled were bound together by religious and social factors, and by the prevalence of intermarriage. These personal ties fulfilled real business functions before the advent of institutional organization in the 20th century.[3][4] Nevertheless, antisemitic elements often falsely targeted them as key players in a supposed Jewish cabal conspiring to dominate the world.[5]
Since the late 20th century have Jews played a major role in the hedge fund industry, according to Zuckerman (2009)
Colonial times
An early Jewish banker in the United States was
- Haym Solomon in the Revolutionary war (see "Transactions of the Jewish Historical Society of America,"passim),
Nineteenth century
Banking
In the middle of the nineteenth century, a number of German Jews founded investment banking firms which later became mainstays of the industry. Most prominent Jewish banks in the United States were
Several Jewish bankers played key roles in providing government financing for both sides of the Civil war: Speyer and
Jewish banking houses were instrumental to the process of capital formation in the United States in the late 19th and early 20th century.[27] For example, the firm of Kuhn, Loeb & Co. played a prominent role in the area of railway finance.
In the late 1860s,
Populist targeting of Jews
Beginning in the early 1880s, declining farm prices also prompted elements of the Populist movement to blame the perceived evils of capitalism and industrialism on Jews because of their alleged racial/religious inclination for financial exploitation and, more specifically, because of the alleged financial manipulations of Jewish financiers such as the Rothschilds.[31] Although Jews played only a minor role in the nation's commercial banking system, the prominence of Jewish investment bankers such as the Rothschilds in Europe, and Jacob Schiff, of Kuhn, Loeb & Co. in New York City, made the claims of anti-Semites believable to some.
The Morgan Bonds scandal injected populist anti-Semitism into the
Another focus of anti-Semitic feeling was the allegation that Jews were at the center of an international conspiracy to fix the currency and thus the economy to a single gold standard.[32]
Jacob Schiff
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/54/JacobSchiff.jpg/130px-JacobSchiff.jpg)
Schiff was offended by contemporary non-Jews such as
Twentieth century
1920s
Arthur Hertzberg argues that, contrary to the claims that Jews controlled banking and finance, the opposite was true. Hertzberg asserts that Jews were a minority on Wall Street and that there was an "effective ban on allowing Jews into the banking business."[35]
Bank of the United States
The Bank of United States was a New York City bank that failed in 1930. The run on its Bronx branch is said to have started the collapse of banking during the Great Depression.[36]
1930s
The radio speeches of
ADL
- ADL rebukes Rush Limbaugh for comments relating Jews and banking.[39]
- ADL demands apology from Time Magazine[40]
References
- ^ "Banking and Bankers," Encyclopaedia Judaica. (2nd ed. 2008)online
- ^ Stephen Birmingham, "Our Crowd": The Great Jewish Families of New York (1967) pp 8-9, 96-108, 128-42, 233-36, 331-37, 343,
- ^ Vincent P. Carosso, "A Financial Elite: New York's German-Jewish Investment Bankers," American Jewish Historical Quarterly, 1976, Vol. 66 Issue 1, pp 67-88
- ^ Barry E. Supple, "A Business Elite: German-Jewish Financiers in Nineteenth-Century New York," Business History Review, Summer 1957, Vol. 31 Issue 2, pp 143-177
- ^ Richard Levy, ed. Bankers, Jewish" in Antisemitism: A Historical Encyclopedia of Prejudice and Persecution (2005) pp 55-56
- ^ Bruce Zuckerman, The Jewish Role In American Life (2009) pp 64, 70
- ^ Led by Steven Cohen; Bruce Zuckerman, The Jewish Role In American Life (2009) p. 71
- ^ Bruce Zuckerman, The Jewish Role In American Life (2009) p. 72
- ^ "Schechter school mourns founder Golda Och, 74" New Jersey Jewish News Jan. 13, 2010
- ^ "The 400 Richest Americans:#355 Noam Gottesman" Forbes Sept 17. 1008
- ^ Steven L. Pease. The Golden Age of Jewish Achievement (2009) p. 510
- ^ See Jamie Johnson, "Wasps Stung over Renaming of the N.Y.P.L." Vanity Fair Daily May 19, 2008
- ^ Robin Pogrebin, "Donor Gives Lincoln Center $10 Million",New York Times Sept. 30, 2009
- ^ Ron Chernow, The Warburgs (1994) p. 661
- ^ R. William Weisberger, "Jews and American Investment Banking,"American Jewish Archives, June 1991, Vol. 43 Issue 1, pp 71-75
- ^ On the careers of John Gutfreund (atSalomon Brothers); Felix Rohatyn (based at Lazard); Sanford I. Weill (of Citigroup) and numerous others see Judith Ramsey Ehrlich, The New Crowd: The Changing of the Jewish Guard on Wall Street (1990), pp. 4, 72, 226.
- ^ Charles D. Ellis, The Partnership: The Making of Goldman Sachs (2nd ed. 2009) pp 29, 45, 52, 91, 93
- ^ Baron, p 223
- ^ Krefetz, p 46
- ^ Sombart, p 59
- ^ Krefetz p 54-55
- ^ Knee, Jonathan A. (2007). The Accidental Investment Banker: Inside the Decade That Transformed Wall Street. Random House Digital, Inc. p. 31.
- ^ Bodnar, John (1991). The transplanted: a history of immigrants in urban America. Indiana University Press. p. 134.|quote=Jewish banking houses such as those of the Guggenheims, Wertheims, and Baches actually received financial and human resources from Jewish bankers in Europe.}}
- ^ Krefetz, p 46
- ^ Baron, p 224
- ^ J. C. Schwab, "Confederate States of America," p. 102, New York, 1901)
- ^ Baron, Salo Wittmayer; Kahan, Arcadius; Gross, Nachum (1975). Economic history of the Jews. p. 224.
The contribution of such Jewish banking houses to the process of capital formation in the United States in the late 19th and early 20th century was considerable by any standard.
- ^ Birmingham, Our crowd pp. 231-8, 350
- ^ Perry, p 148
- ^ Jay P. Pederson, ed. International directory of company histories: Volume 61 (2004) p 141
- ^ Knight, Peter (2003). Conspiracy theories in American history: an encyclopedia, Volume 1. ABC-CLIO. p. 82.
- ^ Albanese, Catherine L. (1981). America, religions and religion. Wadsworth Pub. Co.
By the 1890s anti-Semitic feeling had crystallized around the suspicion that the Jews were responsible for an international conspiracy to base the economy on the single gold standard.
- ^ Cohen
- ^ Cohen, p 52-3
- ^ Hertzberg, Arthur (1989). The Jews in America: four centuries of an uneasy encounter : a history. Columbia University Press. p. 233.
- ^ Gray, Christopher (18 August 1991), "Streetscapes: The Bank of the United States in the Bronx; The First Domino In the Depression", The New York Times
- ^ Wenger, Beth S. (1999). New York Jews and the Great Depression: Uncertain Promise. Syracuse University Press. p. 11.
- ISBN 0253338093.
- ^ "ADL Rebukes Limbaugh for remarks on Jews".
- ^ "ADL Demands Apology for Time Magazine Sept 9/11 Memorial Cover".