England: ahead of its time in antisemitism

Class. again. but, I only have 4 more class periods for the entire trip! woo woo. seriously, this honors workload is crazy. I have been on this trip for two weeks and have already had four papers due, two and a half plays to read, and 200 pages of extra material to read. not to mention the daily quizzes to make sure we are actually doing the reading.
Today we did a walking tour of the Old Jewish Quarter in East London (guess what?! I have a paper to write on it)and for the most part it was really interesting. The English came up with all kinds of ways to persecute and tax the Jews. they made up about 1/4 of 1% of the population but accounted for 8% of the revenue levied through taxes. they couldnt own land or be citizens, and basically money lending was the only industry they could prosper in. they charged interest on the borrowed money, which was called usary at the time, and was considered a bad practice.
we learned that England was the first country to expell the jews from the entire country, in 1290. no other country had ever expelled them. (they had been sent away from cities, but not countries)and previous to that, they had been made to wear yellow badges to identify themselves as jewish. sound familiar?
so we got to walk around in some of the oldest parts of london, which oddly look like the newest parts of london because they were bombed during WWII and rebuilt. we saw where the oldest synagogues used to be and where the jewish ghettos were. and heard about how evil the christians thought they were. definitely an uplifting afternoon.
things of course, are much better for the jewish people in england, and the poor jewish neighborhoods are now filled with Bangladeshi people. our guide said that the bangladeshies will soon start moving out of the area and a new group will come in. one street had 64 indian restaurants on it!! sounds delicious to me!

tomorrow is the British Museum. I have exactly one week left in London. that is amazing. Part of me is ready to get the heck out of dodge (I don't know if you have been keeping up or not, but it is cold and rainy here. always.) and part of me wants to stay forever because it is one of the most amazing places in the world.