Abstract
Abstract The economic activities of Eastern Jews were no less shrouded in myth than the dimensions of their “mass immigration.” According to prevalent stereotypes, immigrant Jews parasitically feasted on the German economy while contributing nothing to their host country. The prototypical Eastern Jew, of course, was the “Schnor rer.’’ Cartoonists merely had to sketch a beggar garbed in black to evoke an image of the Eastern Jew. And when demagogues inveighed against Schnorrers, their audiences knew that immigrant Jews were the objects of scorn. The reverse side of this stereotype was the Eastern Jew who exploited Germans either by hawking junk-as did contemptible ‘‘pants-sellers’’—or seizing control of lucrative and powerful economic positions-as did pushy Jewish financiers. What, however, was the relationship between these common stereotypes and the actual economic behavior of immigrant Jews?
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