ABSTRACT
The removal of political and civil disabilities has had a profound effect on social and economic conditions of the Jews in Western countries. The army is not the only institution which discriminates against Jews in Western countries, where they are politically equal with the rest of population. The causes of the social ostracism of the Jews are to be sought for in the centuries of oppression of Children of Israel in Europe. As K. Gutzkow says, the majority of Jewish baptisms are the result of their intense love for their children. Even in France and England, where the Jew does not suffer as much as in other countries from the exclusion from social and political advantages, baptism has been decimating higher classes of Jews, and, together with mixed marriages, has prevented accumulation of aristocratic families among them. French Jews are rare, "which is probably owing to the fact that conversion was not necessary to a public career in that country".
