Due to the expulsion of the Jews in the course of the Sternberg host desecration trial and the subsequent rabbinical ban on Mecklenburg, Jews did not settle in Mecklenburg again until the second half of the 17th century under Duke Christian Ludwig I. Their second resettlement in Mecklenburg was, in the opinion of Guestrow Rabbi Dr. Ludwig Donath, probably originally owed to this duke's interest in the tobacco trade. He summoned the Jews Abraham Hagen and Nathan Benedix from Hamburg expressly to his court to grant them a trading privilege for the tobacco monopoly on 1 June 1679. After this privilege was then taken over by the court purveyors brothers Bendit and Ruben Goldschmidt from Hamburg, who did not wish to relocate to Schwerin, the Portuguese Jew Michel Henrichs / Henriques (Hinrichsen) from Glueckstadt received their position as court agent in Schwerin at their suggestion. Even though he later fell from the duke's favor, he was to become the progenitor of the well-known Jewish family Hinrichsen in Mecklenburg and Hamburg and one of the co-founders of the Jewish community in Schwerin. Besides him, the brothers Nathan Aaron (also called Joseph Natha) and Philipp Nathan (also called Liepmann/Elieser) from Frankfurt an der Oder were significant for the later development of the Jewish community in Schwerin in particular, but also for the Mecklenburg communities in general. Especially Philipp Nathan, who adopted the family name Aaron, later used the name Aron-Pach, and became a seal engraver at the duke's court, ensured through his proximity to the duke that immigrant Jews received letters of protection.
This gradually led to the emergence of new or the cautious flourishing of already existing Jewish communities in virtually every town in Mecklenburg. The communities in Parchim and Schwerin were particularly notable, while Wismar and Rostock still vehemently opposed the settlement of Jews.
According to Donath, in 1727 the number of Jews trading in Mecklenburg was approximately 300 to 400. In 1752, about 200 Jewish families were reportedly resident in Mecklenburg-Schwerin and about 100 in Mecklenburg-Strelitz. Slightly more than a decade later, the Buetzow Rabbi Chaim Friedberg gave the number of families as 250 in Mecklenburg and still 100 in Strelitz, representing overall -- if at all -- only a slight growth of the Jewish population. According to estimates, there were probably never more than 3,300 Jews in the Mecklenburg area at any one time. This assumption is also supported by a later entry in the "Grand Ducal Mecklenburg-Schwerin State Calendar", which listed the "Jewish communities according to official counts from autumn 1833 in accordance with the Circular Decree of 23 September 1818" and cited the total number of Jews as 3,121.
As far as the legal status of the Jews was concerned, they were -- as, incidentally, were other social groups and even women themselves -- permanently not equal to the rest of the male population. In 1755, the Landesgrundgesetzlicher Erbvergleich was concluded for Mecklenburg-Schwerin and Mecklenburg-Strelitz, which henceforth constituted the fundamental constitution for Mecklenburg. It regulated the rights and duties of the inhabitants, state organs, and various parties, but also established the rights and duties of the Jews and thereby made clear that they had become a permanent and established factor in Mecklenburg. However, it was not genuine progress for the legal status of the Jews. While the Jews were now permitted, unlike before, to acquire houses, they were not allowed to acquire any land. All in all, they remained legally disadvantaged compared to the rest of the population, which -- as in many other European and German lands -- also led in Mecklenburg to an emancipation movement of the Jews. The first expression of this and of the growing Jewish self-confidence were the territorial assemblies, which the Jews held in 1752 in Malchin, in 1764 in Schwaan, and in 1767 in Crivitz.
It was not until the 19th century that the time for emancipation had come. When Jews in other German lands were already demanding or had already demanded their rights, the Jews of Mecklenburg also approached their territorial princes. In the Duchy of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, the court agent Ruben Michel Hinrichsen and the timber merchant Nathan Mendel, the two leaders of the Israelite Community in Schwerin, submitted their petition of 22 February 1811 to Duke Friedrich Franz I with the "Application for the Granting of General Civil Rights". Against the resistance of the noble estates, the dukes finally issued corresponding Emancipation Edicts in the years 1813/14 in Mecklenburg-Schwerin and Mecklenburg-Strelitz, granting the Jews more extensive rights. In particular, the Duke and later Grand Duke Friedrich Franz I of Mecklenburg-Schwerin distinguished himself during this period and thereafter as a patron of the Jews. Connected with the emancipation was, moreover, the duke's requirement that the Jews now adopt hereditary family names. The emancipation thus indirectly led to the fact that most Mecklenburg Jews bore hereditary family names from 1813/14 onwards.
This social achievement of the Jews, however, soon led to a broad counter-movement in the German lands, which later became known under the name "Hep-Hep riots" and, in contrast to Mecklenburg, did claim victims among the Jews elsewhere. This counter-movement had already been successful in Mecklenburg in 1817, when the rights won by the Jews there had already been revoked that year.
The legal situation of the Jews nevertheless improved imperceptibly in the subsequent decades. In 1847, the protection fee for Jews was abolished, and later they were also permitted to acquire at least urban house properties. Only with the creation of the North German Confederation in 1867, and finally with the law of William of Prussia of 3 July 1869, were they granted full civil rights and duties, whereby they now rose for the first time to full citizens of the Reich. Although a period of flourishing now dawned for the Mecklenburg Jews, it was precisely this that probably heralded the end of many Mecklenburg communities. Making use of their new freedom, many descendants of the long-established Jews left Mecklenburg for better opportunities, heading for the major cities or even emigrating overseas. Not a few were baptized in order to assimilate fully and also to be recognized as German citizens. Numerous Jewish communities in Mecklenburg thus had to be dissolved towards the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th century, due to dwindling membership, or merged with larger communities in other towns.