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györgy spiró
from a Jewish consignment,
but a non-Jewish one was
fair game. It might be hard to
tell, though, what came from
Jews in Judaea or Alexandria
and what had not. Anyway,
goods were no longer Jewish
if they were not destined for
a Jew; the destination would
taint them. Wages were
low, families were big, and
necessity teaches a man to
steal; the Lord Almighty does
not support those things, but
they were deaf to the Word of
the Lord; to harm those who
deny Him can be construed
as a divine action. The Jewish
longshoreman, therefore,
filched as much as the rest,
as much as they were able.
Besides, howmanyhadalready
filched from a consignment
while it was en route! And
that was nothing compared to
those who deviously pushed
up the prices. No shortage of
them, to be sure!
All the same, even among
Jews, to be a docker was a
lowly profession. Because
they also had to unload
impure goods, even the
priests got a taste to expedite
purification, although no one
got around the dues for ritual
bathing, which did not exist in
Palestine, and even in Rome
there was not a mikveh, a
ritual bath, in every house of
prayer.
The goods were taken up
the Tiber from Ostia by skiffs
and flat-bottomed lighters,
bringing goods day and night,
colliding as if they were
wrestling one another, with
a small trade war raging for
landing spots. On both banks
of the Tiber, as the loading
and unloading went on day
and night, inns and brothels
prospered. Everyone was
drunk on shore and on the
boats, Jews and non-Jews
alike, and there was no way