Novemeber 11th question

3. JAH pp. 339-340 surveys Jewish professions and the rising number of Jews in Europe. What professions were particularly favored by Jews? What kinds of trade did Jews concentrate in?

Throughout Europe the Jews had a clear economic presence in their society. Most Jews in Western and Central Europe lived a comfortable life, “while the majority in the east and Middle East remained poor. Yet despite economic realities, interwar political and economic conditions across Europe made all Jews objects of envy and hatred by nationalist political groups.” Jews particularly preferred the fields of law, medicine, and money and were extremely prominent within these fields. For instance, in Budapest, 51 percent of lawyers were Jewish, and in 1931 56 percent of Poland’s physicians were Jewish. It was very likely in major cities that a non-Jew would have a Jew as their doctor. Additionally, Jews worked in the bank and stock exchange industry. Throughout the Polish Jewry, Jewish professionals and intellectuals totaled about 300,000 people. In areas like Galicia, Jews comprised the entire commercial class; however there were exceptions. For instance, Families such as Rothschild and the Sassoons flourished economically. In terms of trade, Jews worked with leather goods, textiles, clothing and shoe manufactures. Another field that attracted the Jews was the cosmetics industry. For example in Germany, the Jewish scientists Isaac Lifschutz and Paul Unna invented Nivea, the skin care-cream, in 1911. It later became a household product worldwide.  Department store was another profession Jews preferred to work in. Overall, “Jews had made very significant economic strides, especially in western Europe.” In the Soviet Union they enjoyed a level of occupational freedom that they had not previously known. “The Jews of east-central Europe were essentially the productive and commercially active middle-class.”