GMU Finds Link Between Weather and Persecution

, Malcolm A. Kline, Leave a comment

Researchers at George Mason University claim to have found a link between adverse weather and the persecution of Jews.”Economic historians at George Mason University have discovered a connection between sudden adverse weather changes and the persecution of Jews and other religious minorities during the pre-industrial era,” Buzz McClain reports for GMU. “Between 1100 and 1800 in Europe, periods of unusually cold weather that resulted in economic hardship were responsible for the expulsion or persecution of thousands of Jews, the research shows.”

“Economists Noel Johnson and Mark Koyama in Mason’s College of Humanities and Social Sciences, with co-author Robert Warren Anderson from the University of Michigan–Dearborn, studied 1,366 instances of persecution of Jews across 936 cities.”

“They discovered that the incidence of persecution, including murder, of Jews were more likely to occur following unusually cold growing seasons.”