this post was submitted on 21 Sep 2025
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Most professions were closed to them - service industries generally remained open to them. Hence the representation of Jewish folk in educated professions like lawyers, doctors, translators, merchants, etc, in the Medieval and Early Modern period.
The restrictions were wide-ranging enough that in some places, Jews were forbidden from being farmers. Not simply from owning land, but being peasant tenant-farmers. Utter insanity.
It makes perfect sense if you want to ensure no Jewish people eat while Germans starve.
Honestly, it'd be a bit counterproductive from that standpoint. Money is of more use in circumventing famine than local land, considering local land production (or lack thereof) is usually the cause of famine. Not only that, but that wouldn't explain why Jews were often forbidden from other industries, like cloth-weaving.
It more broadly relates, I think, to medieval ideological conceptions of the Three Classes - 'Those Who Work, Those Who Preach, and Those Who Fight'. By preventing Jews from engaging in labor, and naturally excluding them from the clergy and aristocracy, it places Jews as complete 'outsiders' to the social structure.