the early modern historians who have done painstaking work on this topic including professor benjamin ravid whose work i relied on heavily in this particular account. now, one of the interesting things about the accomplishments of the early modern historians is that they have shown that when the palace of the dodge decided to place the jews in a ghetto, they were really not trying to create a whole framework for how jews should be treated, they were really trying to solve a very particular problem at a very particular moment. and the problem that they were trying to solve was that they needed people to loan money to their lower middle classes and their working class people, and they couldn't have these, their working classes in order to get loans have to get on a boat and travel 30 or 40 minutes or an hour away to get small loans. they needed them right there in the city. and so they created a space for them right there in this most catholic city. they were not trying to create a framework, for example, for how jews should be treated everywhere, but they created a solution for their own pro