Ghettos-not necessarily a bad thing

Usually when I first think of ghettos I think of either the Jews under Nazi Germany confinement or poor black people-you know from the hood-the rough part of town. Yet ghettos weren't always necessarily a bad thing. Yes, ghettos were originally self imposed during the Middle Ages when they were first created and the purpose was for certain people to be segregated according to their status and economic status as well as their religious status. Jews lived in ghettos because the old stereotype is that Jews are connected to money. Actually most Jews did have jobs that involved money such as bankers and merchants and the majority population relied upon them because according to religion, Christions were not allowed to handle money while in Judaism, there are no such prohibitions regarding money.

Yet despite being associated with one particular group and poverty, ghettos weren't originally negative. For one thing, they helped preserve certain cultures, they also provided security-in the case of Jews it was from pograms. Also ghettos provided a sense of commonality as well as an economic status locality. Ghettos usually occured through immigration. So ghettos weren't always associated with poverty or crime-that's usually what they represent today though.

here is a link to a website that explains more about ghettos during the Holocaust-yet also explains that the concept is much older than that of WWII and the Nazis. In other words, Jews have been forced to live in ghettos long before Nazis came into the picture.http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/ghettos/