[SQiTmhuY]

Apparently you have a fantasy of the jewish ghettos of Europe as being wealthy gated communities filled with rich money lenders or something. I do? You got all that from my questioning of your line of reasoning that: live in ghettos->poor?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_ghettos_in_Europe

In 1565, Pope Paul IV created the Roman Ghetto and issued papal bull Cum nimis absurdum, forcing Jews to live in a specified area. The area of Rome chosen for the ghetto was the most undesirable quarter of the city, owing to constant flooding by the Tiber River. At the time of its founding, the four-block area was designated to contain roughly 1,000 inhabitants. However, over the years, the Jewish community grew, which caused severe overcrowding. Since the area could not expand horizontally (the ghetto was surrounded by high walls), the Jews built vertical additions to their houses, which blocked the sun from reaching the already dank and narrow streets. Life in the Roman Ghetto was one of crushing poverty, due to the severe restrictions placed upon the professions that Jews were allowed to perform.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankfurter_Judengasse

The Frankfurter Judengasse (from German: “Jews' Alley”) was the Jewish ghetto of Frankfurt and one of the earliest ghettos in Germany. It existed from 1462 until 1796 and was home to Germany's largest Jewish community in early modern times.

Initially, some 15 families with about 110 members lived in Frankfurt's Judengasse when they were forcibly removed from the city and relocated to the ghetto by decree of Frederick III in 1462. By the 16th century, the number of inhabitants rose to over 3,000, living in 195 houses.[2] The ghetto had one of the highest population densities in Europe. Contemporary documents described it as narrow, oppressive and dirty.

the Jews continued to be treated as an alien group, who had a lower status than citizens and non-citizen residents alike.

Due to the crowded and unsanitary conditions on the Judengasse most Jews had left the former ghetto during the 19th century and settled in the neighboring suburb, "Ostend". So, you found one example where Jews living in a ghetto were poor, and one example of a crowded, unsanitary ghetto. I'm sure that in your mind this proves something or other.

raq was part of the Ottoman Empire for centuries and cleaning cesspools was a common jewish occupation there. Was it because of their lower intelligence? Were the jews of Morocco, Iran etc congenitally low IQ because they did the dirty jobs? Firstly, no where in your sources does it claim that "cleaning cesspools" was a common practice. Many physics professors in the United States are Jewish, does this mean that a professor of physics is a common occupation for American Jews? This is pretty basic reasoning, mate. Secondly, you seem to be hung up on Jews doing dirty work, while in the real world, the did quite a bit more than just that:

Under Muslim rule, beginning in the 7th century, the situation of the community fluctuated. Many Jews held high positions in government or prospered in commerce and trade. At the same time, Jews were subjected to special taxes, restrictions on their professional activity, and anti-Jewish incitement among the masses.

Under British rule, which began in 1917, Jews fared well economically, and many were elected to government posts. This traditionally observant community was also allowed to found Zionist organizations and to pursue Hebrew studies. All of this progress ended when Iraq gained independence in 1932. source

For 2,600 years the Jews of Iraq had dwelled successfully in the land of Babylon, achieving as much acceptance and financial success as a non-Muslim group could in an Islamic society that despised infidels. Iraqi Jews were well entrenched at all levels of farming, banking, commerce and the government bureaucracy. They virtually invented the modern Iraqi monetary and financial system after that nation emerged from the British mandate in 1932. Jews contributed vibrantly to the arts and were the heart of Iraq's international commerce.

Indeed, Jews were among the best-educated people in the country, and fiercely loyal to a land they had thrived in for millennia. As such, they were the wealthiest and most assimilated Jews in the Arab Middle East. In many ways they resembled the middle-class and affluent, entrenched Jews of Germany who felt more German than Jewish. Likewise, Iraqi Jews, universally anti-Zionist, believed they were more Iraqi than Jewish. source

Thirdly, no doubt it would be lost on you, but there should be made a distinction between jobs that were held in low regard because of cultural reasons(such as usury and butchery and the like), and jobs that were undesirable because they enabled for little economic or personal freedom(such as a serf, for example). Jews, being a distinct group from the host population, had the prerogative to completely disregard the social conventions in favor of a lucrative venture, simply because the social conventions did not apply to them.

Many jews in czarist Russia were poor farmers living in villages. Were they congenitally stupid as you claim the blond christian russian serfs were? Were did I claim that Russian serfs were stupid? Would you mind pointing it out?