Were Jews in Medieval Europe exclusively a mercantile class or

I'm pretty sure there were lots of Jewish farmers in Central Europe up until the Holocaust

>>1581115
There weren't. At least not in Poland.

Jews weren't like a class of merchants, they just had an edge in banking because Christianity forbid usury. Most Jews have never been bourgeois and they had communal structures in Jewish communities where food and shit was shared collectively. This primitive form of localized communism still exists in Israel but it's usually just a dining hall and some other shit. I forget what they're called, they tried reintroducing the system fully today but it didn't work.

>>1581273
>I forget what they're called, they tried reintroducing the system fully today but it didn't work.
Kibutz?

>>1581110

My understanding is that they fulfilled the same role in central and eastern Europe as they did in pre industrial Africa, in that they operated as small time shopkeeps and artisans servicing largely rural, agrarian communities. So they did things like jewel work, tailoring, and cobbling in the village for local farmers. Where there were restrictions on usury, they also lent money. Of course, as Machiavelli notes, if someone owes an obligation to you, they inevitably come to resent you. And lord knows small dorps the world over are a festering sump of petty resentments, feuds and jealousies.

>>1581344

*South Africa, that is. There were Jews in South Africa for almost as long as there were whites.

they usually weren't allowed to own land, be members of guilds or hold public offices

>>1581298
Yeah, that's it. I learned a lot of things when I dated a Jew. Then I forgot them.

>>1581110
>Jewish nobility
I once read that Austria had some jewish nobels who played a big part in establishing the austrian empire. But it was on a "heraldry" website so probably bullshit.

>>1581139

Wrong. In 16th century Poland there were both Jewish farming communities (for example around Zamosc) and some nobles who were unconverted Jews (for example Michał Rabinkowicz, ennobled in 1525).

>>1581110
Why do Jews get such a negative reputation of being merchants when the most influential and powerful merchants of the middle ages (Medici, Fugger, ...) were all Christians?