TEE JEWS: RACE AND ENVIRONMENT 45 



of Jews to Christianity are comparatively rare in Russia and Roumania, 

 while, in common with all others who are on a low social and economic 

 level, their natural increase, i. e., the excess of births over deaths is 

 enormous among them. They increase in number in spite of the 

 attempt to check them. This is substantiated by the statistical evi- 

 dence gathered from the censuses of Russia, Roumania, Poland, Ga- 

 licia, etc. 



On the other hand, in western Europe, in Germany, Italy, France, 

 England and in America, where the Jews are enjoying civil liberty on 

 an equal basis with the general population, and where they are, as a 

 result, on a superior plane socially, intellectually and economically, 

 their birth and marriage rates are so low, that even with phenomenally 

 low death rates there is left a very small excess of births over deaths, 

 in fact they show a striking retrogression and decadence. This deca- 

 dence is by no means accidental, but can be traced as due to the re- 

 markable development they have been undergoing during the last 

 seventy-five years, and also to the social intercourse with gentiles which 

 in addition also brings about mixed marriages. The children born to 

 these mixed couples are lost to the Jews, less than twenty-five per cent, 

 and there is good reason to believe that hardly more than ten per cent, 

 remain Jews, while the rest is net gain to Christianity. On the whole, 

 the native Jews in western Europe and America are being decimated 

 by a low birth rate, and absorbed by intermarriage with christians. 

 Any increase in their number is due to immigration from eastern 

 Europe. 



The demographic facts presented by the Jews may also be taken as 

 an index of their religious status. In the orient and in eastern Europe, 

 where the devotion to their faith is intense, they have high birth rates, 

 early marriages, substantial excess of births over deaths, and no inter- 

 marriages with christians occur. In western Europe and in America 

 conditions are different and go hand in hand with an evident lessened 

 intensity of faith, often amounting to religious indifference. In fact, 

 the cruel persecutions and massacres to which they were exposed 

 during the last two thousand years have not robbed the Jews of as 

 large a proportion of adherents as modern emancipation with its con- 

 comitant adaptation of the habits and customs of modern civilized life. 

 To take Russia as an example. There the Jews are oppressed mainly 

 with one aim in view: to gain them for the Greek orthodox church. 

 As soon as he adopts Christianity, the Jew, besides receiving a bonus 

 of thirty silver roubles, is also given all the rights enjoyed by the chris- 

 tian population. But notwithstanding all these tempting advantages 

 offered, less than 90,000 Jews were converted during the nineteenth 

 century. In contrast with this may be taken Prussia, where the num- 

 ber of Jews is only 392,322 (1900) as against about 5,500,000 in 



