[PLOlover]

one of the reasons the jews (who actually read the torah, unlike christaians) were persecuted in the middle ages was that they practiced the sanitary rules in the bible and thus didn't get sick/as sick as the locals (like during plagues) who knew nothing about the word of god, so it was easy for clergy and others to politicize the issue to steal from the jews using as a pretense that jews were in league with devil, etc.