I heard that Jewish men grew wealthy way back because Christians couldn’t lend money and collect interest.
If so, good for the Jews.
again, forgive my naivety if i’m completely wrong.
Jews are commanded to value life over death.
Correct. The Church decided to reinterpret scripture strictly - prohibiting members from charging each other interest That caused economic depression since borrowing was about the only way to put together funds sufficient for investment or development or employment of workers. ( The stock corporation had yet to be invented, largely by the Dutch). The church then said, well -— our rules ( and they were enforceable rules then, not just preachings) do not apply to those folks who are not members. Therefore to end the suffering while maintaining the rule , the church turned to some jewish people and asked them to expand lending to get the economy resurrected , bad pun I know but that was the skinny of it. Still and all, once the church relaxed the enforcement of the rule then many Christians went into lending and if truth be fully told the Catholic merchants of Venice and a couple other major trading centers were already deeply involved in lending too ( through various bookkeeping artifacts to avoid mention of “interest” — such as contracts or practices of buying and selling same goods at different prices with a time delay In between — therefrom you can compute the effective interest rate on the funds of course — without ever using the word “interest.” The Church was fully cognizant of these evasive practices but let them go - and in return the church received very generous donations enabling it to construct the big beautiful cathedral and much more. It’s all a fascinating history.