The money-lending trope drove historians to label Chinese commercial groups as Jews

Evidence

Other than physical appearance, skill at making money was another one of the racial characteristics ascribed to the Jews. Thus, the Jews of Kaifeng also had to manifest such an attribute. Apart from making Hebrew scrolls a lucrative business, it was suggested they were all well-to-do, as many of them were tradesmen and money changers. For many years, such images inspired many historians to identify certain commercial groups who had been engaged in money lending in the past in the western regions of China as Jews. — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 360

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the broader learned pattern of Jews-as-economists racial fantasy, e.g. Werner Sombart and the economic antisemitism literature.