R. N. Salaman 277 



that the King and his immediate court were converted ; and according 

 to Joseph Jacobs after the destruction of the Kozar Empire it was 

 the Jews of that district who formed the Karaite sect, and this sect 

 has remained absolutely distinct from the rest of the European Jews, 

 A further wholesale conversion is that of the Falashas, an Abyssinian 

 negroid people, of whom we shall have a little to say later. They do 

 not, however, in any way aflfect the question of the purity of the 

 present-day European Jews as there is no communion whatever 

 between them. 



When one considers the melancholy condition of the Jews in 

 Central Europe throughout the entire Middle Ages, how they were 

 despised and despoiled in every land, is it likely that any Gentile, much 

 less any number, would willingly seek admission into their flock, 

 especially when one remembers that the entry of the male Gentile 

 necessitates the Abrahamic covenant I It might be thought that with 

 the Renaissance and the spread of culture, the opportunity had arisen 

 for a greater intimacy between the Jews and their Gentile brethren, 

 but so far was this from being the case that it was now that the greatest 

 paradox in history took place. To the Gentile, the period of the 

 Renaissance brought culture and freedom of thought, to the Jew it 

 brought the Ghetto and the bondage of the Rabbi. The Ghetto walls 

 acted as an impenetrable barrier between Jew and Gentile up to the time 

 of Napoleon, who was the first in Western Europe to break them down. 

 In Galicia and Russia, where still the majority of Jews live^ the Ghetto 

 life — none the less real though the walls are gone — still exists. During 

 the last two or three generations intermarriage has taken place and 

 become increasingly common in Western Europe, but it has little 

 bearing on our problem. The ofifepring of the intermarried in the 

 great majority of cases, passes over to the Gentile population, whilst 

 those that retain their connection with the Jewish community are 

 cognisant of their origin. It would be possible to follow this question 

 in far greater detail but I do not think that it would serve any useful 

 end. All the historic evidence would seem to bear out the contention 

 that from the second century till at least the beginning of the nineteenth, 

 the Jewish people (Ashkenazim) in Europe absorbed into their own 

 midst practically no blood from the races with whom they came in 

 contact At the same time it is known that a leakage, varying in 

 degree, of Jewish blood to the outside was always taking place, and 

 this loss occurred then as now, at such points on the periphery where the 

 community came into the most intimate contact with the outside world. 



19—2 



