ABSTRACT
The Jews contributed an extraordinary capacity for commerce, and the Northern peoples, above all the Germans, an equally remarkable ability for technical inventions. In Hamburg the Sephardim occupied a position of official superiority over the German Jews; the latter having to give undertakings to the former that no shady commercial practices would be carried on. But it is not assuming too much to say, that differences in their vicissitudes are traceable to differences in their natures. These differences must not, however, be made too much of. "The Jews in the Roman Diaspora compared as to their descent with those in Judaea are like the mixed dough to the pure flour, but Judaea itself is only dough compared with Babylon".
