eighteenth century the two groups became equal in number, and by the end of the eighteenth century Ashkenazim outnumbered Sephardim three to two, the result of improved living conditions in Christian Europe as against the Muslim world (due to poverty in Muslim world). "During the nineteenth century these improvements led to a population explosion among Ashkenazic Jewry which was only paralleled in the Sephardic world at the very end of the century. The Ashkenazic high point came in 1931 ...