"A curse on the pot of gold made at another's expense." {Sephardic saying} (Lazar 149).
The position of the Sephardim as agents of the Moorish government, during the Golden Age, began their long history of international trade (Raphael 58). They had helped the Arabs with their conquest of the Visigoths and were very capable in administrative and commercial tasks. Thus, the Jews worked together with the Arabic government (Barral Rivadulla 424; Romero 20-1).
The Jews had lived in many parts of Europe and Africa and some of their communities continued to exist there. The foreign Jewish communities trusted the Sephardim, because they were Jews, which facilitated trade over these long distances. Also, these communities all had Hebrew as a common language. This facilitated the communication between the various international, Jewish communities. Thus, the role of the Jews was crucial in the business transactions of Spain.
The Jews also had a special role within Iberia. They were the glue between the Christians and Muslims, by helping to bridge social and economic gaps between them (Raphael 69). They paid much higher taxes than the Arabs, but lived almost as well as the gentiles (Roth 149). The Sephardim were successful in many professions, such as, doctors, farmers, gold and silversmiths, merchants and businessmen.
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