IV. SUMMARY
A review of the occupations, economic function and social characteristics of the Jews in the countries of Eastern Europe reveals them in an important and essentially similar rôle in each country. Pursuing mainly industrial and commercial occupations, the Jews constitute by far the largest part of the middle classes of each country. The historical position which they held in the ancient kingdom of Poland as the middle class has been practically maintained to this day.
By virtue of their occupations, the Jews are possessed of liquid wealth to a greater extent than the nobility or the peasantry, and in the lack of proper credit facilities still serve as bankers and money-lenders. The Jews have also been conspicuous in Eastern Europe as stewards or administrators of the estates of the nobility, who are, as a rule, absentee landlords, distinguished as a class by their serious lack of interest or ability in the management of their estates. The Jewish Hofjuden, as they were known, were particularly useful in the utilization of the products of the soil, through distilleries, mills, trade with agricultural products and exploitation of the forests.[33] In this way, however, Jews often acted as intermediaries in the oppression of the peasantry by the nobles. They were often keepers or lessees of the taverns, the ownership of which was formerly vested in the nobles as one of their feudal privileges.
It is, however, as artisans, industrial laborers and merchants, retail and wholesale, that Jews chiefly obtain their living. Their monopoly of industry and commerce has given them an influence far above their numerical proportions.
In each of these countries, again, the Jews are essentially town dwellers in the midst of preponderatingly rural populations. That the degree of the contrast is due to the artificial workings of restrictive laws is unquestioned. The chief reason for this, however, is occupational. The Jews as an industrial and commercial people constitute one of the main elements out of which the town populations are recruited. Towns are ordinarily the foci of all the cultural forces and the movement and enterprise of a country. In Eastern Europe, where the number of towns is so few, this is much more the case than in Western Europe. The fact that the Jews are so largely concentrated in these comparatively few towns serves to give them a cultural position and influence far out of proportion to their numbers. Their economic activities and their relatively large participation in the liberal professions strengthens this position considerably.
Amidst populations preponderatingly devoted to agricultural occupations and dwelling in villages, the Jews represent an industrial and commercial people, strongly concentrated in towns. This economic and social position of the Jews is of the greatest significance, especially in the present period of transition in these countries. Possessed of the characteristics of a modern people in their economic and social life and in their mentality, they present a sharp contrast with the peoples among whom they dwell and whose economic and social life are only now taking on modern forms. It is this that makes the Jews personify in a large degree the forces of economic enterprise and of social progress in these countries.
On the other hand, the exceptional economic and social position held by the Jews among the East-European peoples has made them peculiarly susceptible to the changes that have been taking place, as their inferior legal status and sharp differentiation from the mass of the people have made them favorable objects of attack in the politico-economic struggles that have largely accompanied the transition.
A consideration of the legal status of the Jews in each of the countries of Eastern Europe and of the chief forces that have ruled their history for more than a third of a century will enable us to see some of the dynamic aspects of the recent history of the East-European Jews and the underlying causes of their recent emigration.