The work they did
Every occupation recorded for our people, grouped by kind, with a short note on what the job meant in their day and the people who did it. Each name opens that person's card in the tree; hover over a name to see the record it comes from.
Religious life
42 records
Rabbi9
The community's authority on Jewish law. In a Galician or Hungarian town the rabbi answered questions of kashrut, marriage and divorce, judged disputes, and taught. Many were paid by the community or lived on fees and gifts; some held the post in one town for decades and passed it to a son or son-in-law.
Shochet9
The ritual slaughterer killed cattle and poultry according to Jewish law and inspected the animal for defects. It required years of study, a license (kabbalah) from a rabbi, a steady hand and a perfectly sharp knife. In a village the shochet was often also the cantor and the teacher.
Melamed/teacher9
The melamed taught young boys in the cheder, usually a room in his own home: the Hebrew alphabet, prayers, then the Torah and its commentaries. Pay came from parents and was meagre. Later generations taught in state or Hebrew schools.
Cantor8
The chazan led the prayers in the synagogue, chanting the services and the High Holy Day liturgy from memory. A good voice could make a career: cantors moved between congregations by contract, and in Hungary and Slovakia the office often ran in families. Many also worked as shochet or teacher, because a cantor's salary alone was small.
Mohel4
Performed the circumcision (brit milah) on the eighth day after a boy's birth. Usually a respected religious man who did it as a sacred duty, often alongside work as a shochet or cantor, and whose name was entered in the birth register as the circumciser.
Sexton/shammes3
The synagogue's caretaker and beadle: opened and kept the building, called men to prayer, collected dues and ran errands for the rabbi and the burial society.
Trade and commerce
114 records
Merchant47
In the records a merchant (Kaufmann, kereskedő, kupiec) could be anything from a wholesaler to a man with a market stall. Jewish merchants bought grain, wine, wool, hides and timber from estates and peasants and sold them in the towns, or ran shops selling cloth and goods.
Shopkeeper15
Kept a small store, often in the front room of the family home, selling dry goods, haberdashery or groceries. Wives and children usually worked the counter too.
Salesman11
Sold goods for a firm, in a store or on the road as a travelling salesman. A common white-collar step for the American-born generation.
Poultry dealer9
Bought geese, ducks and chickens from village households and sold them, live or slaughtered, in town. In New York, poultry markets on the Lower East Side and in Brooklyn employed many families.
Peddler7
Carried goods from village to village on foot or by cart, selling needles, cloth and household wares and buying hides, feathers or rags. In America many immigrants started this way before opening a store.
Timber/lumber dealer6
Bought standing timber from estates, had it felled and floated or hauled to sawmills, and sold the lumber. A common Jewish business in the forested Carpathian regions, and later in Canada.
Grocer5
Ran a food store. In New York and Brooklyn the corner grocery was one of the most common first businesses for immigrant families, open long hours seven days a week.
Manufacturer4
Owned a workshop or factory, most often in the garment, knitting or leather trades, employing others.
Textile/clothing dealer3
Bought and sold cloth, linens or ready-made clothing. In Hungary and Slovakia Jewish textile merchants supplied the town and country trade; in New York the clothing trade was the largest single employer of Jewish immigrants.
Grain dealer3
Bought grain from peasants and estates after harvest and sold it on to mills and city markets. It needed capital, storage and good judgment of prices.
Real estate3
Bought, managed or sold property. Several immigrant families moved from a trade into owning tenement buildings or houses.
Insurance agent1
Sold life, fire or burial insurance, often door to door. In Galicia and in America it was a common job for an educated man without capital.
Inns, land and the countryside
31 records
Tavern keeper/innkeeper14
Ran the village inn or tavern, selling drink, food and lodging to peasants and travellers. Under the old estate system Jews often leased the right to sell alcohol from the landowner, so the innkeeper was a fixture of almost every village in Galicia and northeastern Hungary.
Farmer/smallholder13
Worked the land. In Hungary and Slovakia some Jewish families owned or rented small farms; a smallholder worked a few acres with the family's own labour.
Leaseholder (arendator)2
Leased an estate's income rights from a noble landowner: a mill, a tavern, a dairy or the whole estate's farming. The arendator paid the owner a fixed sum and lived on what he could make. A respected but precarious position.
Landowner1
Owned farmland or an estate, usually rented out to tenants or worked by hired labour.
Miller1
Ran a water or wind mill grinding grain for the village, often leased from the estate.
Crafts and trades
70 records
Tailor19
Made and mended clothing by hand, measured to order. In the old country a village tailor might travel to customers; in New York tailoring became factory and sweatshop work, and the tailor was the most common immigrant occupation of all.
Seamstress/dressmaker10
Sewed dresses, shirts and underwear, at home for private customers or in a shop. For many young immigrant women it was the first paid job in America.
Butcher9
Cut and sold kosher meat, often working with the shochet who slaughtered it. The town butcher shop was a family business that passed from father to son.
Furrier8
Cut and sewed pelts into coats, collars and hats. New York's fur district around Seventh Avenue was a heavily Jewish trade.
Carpenter7
Built and repaired houses, furniture and fittings in wood.
Painter5
Painted houses and buildings, inside and out.
Baker3
Baked bread, challah and pastries, working through the night so bread was ready by morning.
Tinsmith2
Made and mended pots, pans, gutters and roofing from tin and sheet metal.
Glazier2
Cut and fitted window glass. In New York glaziers often walked the streets with glass on their backs calling for work, or ran small glass and mirror shops.
Printer2
Set type and ran presses for newspapers, books and job printing.
Watchmaker1
Repaired clocks and watches, a delicate trade that needed training and a good eye.
Factory, city and wage work
44 records
Clerk14
Office or shop work keeping accounts, writing letters and serving customers. For the first American-born generation, a clerk's job was a step up from the factory floor.
Laborer11
Unskilled day work: hauling, digging, loading, farm work. In civil registers a 'day labourer' (napszámos, Taglöhner) was among the poorest occupations.
Bookkeeper/accountant7
Kept a business's books and accounts. A steady white-collar job that needed schooling.
Taxi/chauffeur5
Drove a cab or a private car for hire. New York's yellow cabs gave many second-generation men a living in the 1920s to 1950s.
Factory worker/operator3
An 'operator' ran a sewing machine in a garment factory, paid by the piece. Most immigrant families had at least one.
Cutter/presser (garment trade)2
Skilled and semi-skilled jobs in the New York clothing factories: the cutter cut many layers of cloth to pattern with a heavy knife; the presser ironed finished garments with heavy irons. Long hours, piece rates and the unions shaped these jobs.
Knitting-mill foreman1
Supervised workers and machines in a knitting mill making sweaters, underwear and hosiery.
Professions
15 records
Physician6
Practised medicine. Before the war, Jewish doctors in Central Europe often trained in Vienna, Prague or Budapest.
Engineer3
Trained in engineering and worked in industry, construction or public works.
Other
48 records
Housewife23
Kept the home and raised the children. Most women in these records did far more than the word suggests, often working beside their husbands in a shop, inn or trade without a separate occupation being written down.
Soldier15
Served in the army, whether conscripted into the Austro-Hungarian forces or enlisted in the US, British or Israeli forces.
Student10
Recorded as a student at the time of a record.