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While Jews are regarded as the city-dwellers par excellence, a considerable percentage of the Jewish population lived in the countryside during the modern age. In fact, the majority of Jews of the Holy Roman Empire between the 16th and the 19th century were country-dwellers. In the German language area in particular, rural Jews were a widespread phenomenon and were distinct from the Jews living in estate districts in Eastern Europe.1. Origins and legal status during the early modern ageExpelled from many cities of the Holy Roman Empire in the Late Middle Ages, Jews were at first often able to settle in the surrounding countryside. It was primarily due to the settlement policy of territorial lords that during the 16th century Jews increasingly moved to rural areas, where they were able to acquire the right of residence. For minor regional noblemen and, above all, the imperial knights, th…

In premodern Europe, and in some cases beyond, peddling was a characteristically Jewish occupation. The work of the travelling peddler who went door to door to offer his wares allowed certain sections of the Jewish lower classes to earn their livelihood over generations. With the emergence of the industrial society and the Jewish rise into the middle class, the trade disappeared almost completely among Jews in Central and Western Europe, while it could still sometimes be found in Eastern Europe up until the Second World War. Jewish peddlers can be shown to have existed in most European countries and in the United States. With their expulsion from large cities beginning in the late Middle Ages, Jews found new occupations in towns and villages not only in the cattle trade or as pawnbrokers (Money Lending) but also as peddlers who specialized in supplying the rural population. The Jewish …

Wenngleich Juden als Stadtbewohner schlechthin gelten, lebten große Teile der jüdischen Bevölkerung in der Neuzeit auf dem Land. So handelte es sich bei den Juden des Alten Reichs zwischen dem 16. und 19. Jahrhundert mehrheitlich um Landbewohner. Besonders im deutschsprachigen Raum waren Landjuden ein verbreitetes Phänomen; sie unterschieden sich als solches auch von den teilweise in Gutsbezirken des östlichen Europa ansässigen Juden. …

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