Jewish ‘invention’ myths come in many different forms from highly specific claims to sweeping assertions and one of the latter is today’s jewish invention myth in the form of the claim that jews ‘invented pawnbroking’. (1)
Before we debunk this claim let us be clear that pawnbroking is the practice of lending money to individuals in exchange for a physical item which is given over to the pawnbroker as collateral for the monetary loan and the item can then be redeemed for a specified amount and time period before it is offered for re-sale to make up the balance of the loan.
Those who claim that jews invented pawnbroking are non-specific about their claims and although jews have been heavily involved in pawnbroking since the late nineteenth century in western Europe. Pawnbroking first appears in China circa 3,000 B.C. and we omnipresent in ancient Rome (2) and to a lesser extent were present in ancient Greece as well.
As the website ‘History’ explains:
‘More than 3,000 years ago, pawn shops first emerged in Ancient China as a method of granting short-term credit to peasants. Some pawnbrokers operated independently, but over time most of these businesses were run through pawn shops. Pawnbroking thrived in ancient Greece and Rome, giving merchants a way to get small shops off the ground.’ (3)
Our sources for the history of pawnbroking are excellent given that we have accounts of it not only in the literature of the time but also in contemporary records such as those excavated at the Roman city of Pompeii. (4)
Nor did the practice of pawnbroking begin with the jews – the prohibition of Riba (i.e., jews are prohibited from charging interest to other jews) implicitly prohibits pawnbroking among the jews – but the rather with the Chinese, Greeks and Romans with the English term ‘pawn’ deriving from the Latin word ‘Patinum’ meaning cloth or clothing, because clothing was often the most valuable item owned by most Romans. (5)
Thus, we can see that pawnbroking is not a jewish invention, but rather a Chinese and Greco-Roman one!
References
(1) For example: https://boulderjewishnews.org/2009/an-informal-list-of-jewish-inventions-innovations-and-radical-ideas/
(2) https://www.historytoday.com/history-matters/roman-loans
(3) https://www.history.co.uk/shows/pawn-stars/articles/pawning-history
(4) https://www.historytoday.com/history-matters/roman-loans
(5) https://www.history.co.uk/shows/pawn-stars/articles/pawning-history