Working Life

Jewish Trades?

Here we go again...there is no such thing as a Jewish trade, but large numbers of our ancestors did occupy a small percentage of trades. Given the huge number of agricultural labourers in certain censuses we see comparatively few Jewish ancestors following that line of work.

Jews were often in the clothing trade: tailors, drapers, furriers, etc. Hawkers and peddlers were early trades. Financiers or money lenders are also prominent, this was the only profession open to medieval British Jewry. Journeyman is a common sight on birth, marriage and death certificates. Then we have jewellers and cigar makers and all manner of other trades. We also have a whole plethora of religious personnel, from cantors to rabbis. We find teachers, scholars, doctors, opticians, dentists and lawyers.

But what did they actually do?

Old Occupations Explained or More Old Occupations

A Furrier's Life

"Flutter Duck's husband was a furrier-a master furrier, for he did not run a workshop? This workshop was also his living-room and this living-room was also his bedroom. It was a large front room on the first floor, over a chandler's shop in an old-fashioned house in Montague Street, Whitechapel"

"By the foot of the bed, in the narrow wall opposite the window, was a door leading to a tiny inner room. For years this door remained locked; another family lived on the other side, and the furrier had neither the means nor the need for an extra bed-room"

"And over everything was the trail of the fur. The air was full of a fine fluff-a million little hairs floated about the room covering everything, insulating themselves everywhere, getting down the backs of the workers and tickling them, getting into their lungs and making them cough, getting into their food and drink and sickening them till they learnt callousness. They awoke with 'furred' tongues, and they went to bed with them. The irritating filaments gathered on their clothes, on their faces, on the crockery, on the sofa, on the mirrors (big and little), on the bed, on the decanters, on the sheet that hid the Sabbath clothes- an impalpable down overlaying everything, penetrating even to the drinking-water in the board-covered zinc bucket, and covering 'Rebbitzin' the household cat, with foreign fur." Taken from an extract entitled "Flutter-Duck" sent to me by Lois Kaufman.