In the 13th century a series of increasingly
oppressive laws and taxes reduced the Jewish community to poverty, and
the Jews were expelled from England in 1290. They were not allowed to
return until 1656, when Oliver Cromwell authorized their entry over
the objections of British merchants. Legal protection for the Jews
increased gradually; even the "Act for the More Effectual Suppressing
of Blasphemy and Profaneness" (1698) recognized the practice of Judaism
as legal, but there were probably only a few hundred Jews in the entire
country. The British Jewish community grew gradually, and efforts to
emancipate the Jews were included in various "Reform Acts" in the first
half of the 19th century, although many failed to become law. Gradually
Jews were admitted to the bar and other professions. Full citizenship
and rights, including the right to sit in Parliament, were granted in
1858--only seven years before Trollope began writing _Nina Balatka_. By
this time wealthy Jewish families were growing in number. This upward
mobility and increasing economic and political power no doubt made the
British upper classes envious and resentful, fuelling anti-semitism.
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