What country do jews come from?
Catholic emancipation in 1829 left the Jews as the only religious group suffering under severe disabilities. Yet the progress of Jews in society was unmistakable. David Salomons was made sheriff of London in 1835 and lord mayor in 1855; Francis Goldsmid was the first practising Jew to be given a baronetcy in 1841. When first Lionel Rothschild (1847) and then Salomons (1851) were elected to Parliament, only to be kept out by their inability to take the oath as a Christian, the plight of the Jews was dramatized, and the law was changed in 1858. The first government minister of Jewish faith was appointed in 1871, the first judge in 1873. The obstacles facing Jews remained substantial, but they were personal and social rather than legal.
