Jews and Money: Investigation of a Myth 2013

Filmmaker Lewis Cohen intelligently explores the origins and evolution of the myth of the wealthy Jew. In 2006, Ilan Halimi, a French Jewish salesman is lured to the outskirts of Paris where he is kidnapped and later murdered by criminal gang who had demanded a half-million euro ransom on the assumption that 'all Jews are rich'. Jews & Money is a probe into the myth about Jews, and where and when it took root. Why is the Jew so often cast as the banker or trader, pawnbroker or movie mogul? Of all the medieval moneylenders, why is only Shylock remembered? How did the Rothschilds become the symbols of international capitalism? And why does a simple cell phone salesman get pegged as rich, and die for it?

Filmmaker Lewis Cohen intelligently explores the origins and evolution of the myth of the wealthy Jew. In 2006, Ilan Halimi, a French Jewish salesman is lured to the outskirts of Paris where he is kidnapped and later murdered by criminal gang who had demanded a half-million euro ransom on the assumption that 'all Jews are rich'. Jews & Money is a probe into the myth about Jews, and where and when it took root. Why is the Jew so often cast as the banker or trader, pawnbroker or movie mogul? Of all the medieval moneylenders, why is only Shylock remembered? How did the Rothschilds become the symbols of international capitalism? And why does a simple cell phone salesman get pegged as rich, and die for it?