Halakha bans interest for Jews, allows for non‑Jews True

Zinsgeschäfte sind oder waren in vielen Glaubensgemeinschaften verboten. Doch Christen, Muslime und Juden fanden in der Geschichte immer wieder Wege, Ausnahmen zu konstruieren.

The Torah and Talmud encourage lending money without interest. But the halakha (Jewish law) that prescribes interest-free loans applies to loans made to other Jews, however not exclusively.

However, a Jew is permitted to borrow money from a non-Jew and pay interest to him on the loan, thereby enriching him; and a Jewish person is also permitted to lend money to a non-Jew who asks for a loan and collect interest from him, just as ...

Other Rishonim[2] share a similar view, but say that the purpose of the verse permitting charging interest from a non-Jew is not to add a prohibition on charging a Jew interest but rather is simply teaching us that it is permitted to charge a non-Jew interest.

However, our rabbis in the Talmud strictly forbade lending to non-Jews with interest. Borrowing with interest from a non-Jew was not forbidden.This prohibition means to prevent Jews from engaging in the money lending business with non-Jews in order to seek profit.

If we liken usury to servitude, then by extension we see why the prohibition applies to the borrower as well as to the lender. This approach can also explain why interest is permitted with a non-Jew (se'ifim 24-29).

When one steals someone’s money, he is taking something away from him without his permission. It is forbidden to do this to anyone. Whereas, when one charges a borrower ribbis, the lender agrees to pay the interest and is often happy to do so in order to get the loan.

Ramban disagrees3 and reads the Torah as permitting acting in that way towards non-Jews, not requiring it. Rambam’s language, particularly in the mitzvah of taking interest, does sound like he sees it as an obligation to damage the non-Jew, in contrast to how we would treat a fellow Jew.

Another form of evasion was to lend money on interest to a non-Jew, in order that the non-Jew might relend the money to the intended Jewish debtor; both lending transactions are valid (BM 61b). Some of these forms of evasion, though practiced in talmudic times, have not become the *halakhah (BM 68a per Rava; Yad, Malveh 5:8; 5:16; 6:4–5); others, though recognized as legally valid and feasible, were deprecated as reprehensible and forbidden (BM 61b–62b; Yad, Malveh 5:15) because of the stratagem involved in the device (ha'aramah).

It is forbidden to participate in any way in an interest-bearing loan made by one Jew to another (160:1-3), but it is permitted to lend money to a non-Jew at i

Das durch Verkauf der Überschüsse der Wirtschaft gewonnene Geld sollte dem Bauer ausschließlich zur Stärkung seiner eigenen Wirtschaft oder eventuell für zinslose Darlehen an unbemittelte Mitbürger dienen. Nur im Geschäftsverkehr mit Nichtjuden sollte das Geld den Charakter einer Ware haben und als Einnahmequelle dienen (Deut, 23, 21).

In: Aaron Levine: The Oxford Handbook of Judaism and Economics. Oxford University Press, New York 2010, S. 239–254. Yechiel Grunhaus: The laws of usury and their significance in our time. In: Journal of Halacha and Contemporary Society. 21, 1991, S. 48–59. ↑ Rudolph Franke: Die Entwicklung des Darlehenszinses in Frankreich. Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1996, S. 66. ↑ Eberhard Klingenberg, Das israelische Zinsverbot...