Ashkenazi Jewish intelligence
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Ashkenazi Jews have a history of notable achievements, in the fields of mathematics, natural sciences, business, media, and chess, specially in Western societies, Ashkenazi Jews have won proportionally a large number of Nobel awards.[1]
The topic has been the target of heated discussions, with writers like Wade and Murray claiming that scientists who conclude that there are some differences in average IQ between ethnic groups are ostracized by most of the left-wing Academic circles.[2]
History of Askhenazi Jews[edit]
Historical records support evidence of Jewish communities north of the Alps and Pyrenees as early as the 8th centuries,[3] where they were established often in search for new economic opportunities and at the invitation of local Christian rulers. In the 11th century, both Rabbinic Judaism and the culture of the Babylonian Talmud that underlies it became established in southern Italy and then spread north to 'Ashkenaz'.[4] Various massacres of Ashkenazi Jews occurred throughout Europe during the Crusades. Inspired by the preaching of a First Crusade, crusader mobs in France and Germany perpetrated the Rhineland massacres of 1096, devastating the Jewish communities along the Rhine River, including the cities of Speyer, Worms, and Mainz. The cluster of cities contain the earliest Ashkenazim settlements north of the Alps, and played a major role in the formation of Ashkenazi Jewish religious tradition[5] By the 15th century, the Ashkenazi Jewish communities in Poland were the largest Jewish communities of the Diaspora.[6] This area, which eventually fell under the domination of Russia, Austria, and Prussia (Germany), would remain the main center of Ashkenazi Jewry until the Holocaust.
In the generations after emigration from the west, the Jewish communities in places like Poland, Russia, and Belarus enjoyed a comparatively stable social environment. A thriving publishing industry and the printing of hundreds of biblical commentaries precipitated the development of the Hasidic movement as well as major Jewish academic centers.[7]
Jewish achievements[edit]
According to a study made by the Cambridge University, 21% of Ivy League students, 25% of the Turing Award winners, 23% of the wealthiest Americans, 38% of the Oscar-winning film directors, and 29% of Oslo awardees are Ashkenazi Jews.[8] Jews have also being over-represented among the richest people in the world, 10 out of the 50 wealthiest individuals in the world are Askhenazi Jews.[9]
Studies on Ashenazi Jewish people as a race[edit]
The use of race, whether in research or in the practice of medicine, reifies it as if it has more biological significance than it deserves. That race is an imperfect surrogate for the related causative information.[10] Sander Gilman points that the argument about Jewish smartiness rests on individual accomplishments, such as Nobel prizes and violin virtuosi of those who are labeled or self-identified as “Jews,” and these individual accomplishments "may well be a reflex of a culture of learning and performance by individuals placed in a specific Diaspora situation".[11] Shmuley Boteach suggests that "education improves our mental faculty, just as good nutrition improvise our physical faculties". To the extent that Jews are perceived as smart, it’s so because of their emphasis on textual study and education. And that Jews are successful not because of any superiority in IQ but because of unique values, like rejecting aristocracy in favor of a meritocracy, and an "emphasis on spiritual struggle rather than perfection, with its accompanying acceptance of failure as a path to growth".[12]
Gavin Evans wrote in The Guardian that "one of the people behind the revival of 'race science' was, not long ago, a mainstream figure. In 2014, Nicholas Wade, a former New York Times science correspondent". Wade’s book prompted then 139 geneticists and evolutionary theorists to sign a letter in the New York Times accusing Wade of misappropriating research from their field, and several academics offered more detailed critiques. With Wade himself claiming the reasons for the attacks as politically correctness militancy and political bias. The University of Chicago geneticist Jerry Coyne described it as simply "bad science”.[13]
In popular culture[edit]
Until the 20th century, the characterization of Ashkenazi Jews in American literature was largely based upon the stereotypes employed in English literature. In the latter half of the 19th century, Jews were often characterized as overly ambitious compared to African-Americans and Native Americans. Anti-Jewish stereotypes portrayed Jews as "aggressively smart and threateningly successful"; they were seen as a threat to American culture because of their "rapid social and economic mobility". However, despite their economic success, Jews were depicted as being "unable to assimilate into American culture".[14]
References[edit]
- ↑ Pinker, Steven (26 June 2006). "The lessons of Ashkenazim". New Republic. NewRepublic. Retrieved 13 August 2021.
- ↑ Peter, Beinart (6 March 2017). "A Violent Attack on Free Speech at Middlebury". The Atlantic. Retrieved 14 August 2021.
- ↑ Feldman, Louis H. Jew and Gentile in the Ancient World : Attitudes and Interactions from Alexander to Justinian. Ewing, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996. p 43. p. 43. Search this book on
- ↑ Stemberger, Guenter (4 April 2011). The Formation of Rabbinic Judaism, 70–640 CE. Blackwell Publishing, 2000. p. 92. ISBN 9781107375857. Retrieved 13 August 2021. Search this book on
- ↑ Unesco World Heritage, Centre. "Cities of Speyer, Worms and Mainz". whc.unesco.org.
- ↑ Schoenberg, Shira. "The Diaspora". JewishVirtualLibrary. Jewish Virtual Library. Retrieved 14 August 2021.
- ↑ Breuer, Edward. "Post-medieval Jewish Interpretation.". The Jewish Study Bible (Adele Berlin and Marc Zvi Brettler. ed.). New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. 1900. Search this book on
- ↑ Lalany, Nelly. ""Ashkenazi Jews rank smartest in world"". Ynetnews. Retrieved 13 August 2021.
- ↑ Friedman, Gabe. "10 Jews in the Forbes top 50 billionaires". Times of Israel. Forbes. Retrieved 14 August 2021.
- ↑ Gilman, Sander L. (2008). "Are Jews Smarter Than Everyone Else?". Mens Sana Monographs. 6 (1): 41–47. doi:10.4103/0973-1229.34526. PMC 3190562. PMID 22013349.
- ↑ Gilman, Sander L. (2008). "Are Jews Smarter Than Everyone Else?". Mens Sana Monographs. 6 (1): 41–47. doi:10.4103/0973-1229.34526. PMC 3190562. PMID 22013349.
- ↑ Boteach, Shumuley. "The myth of Jewish privilege and intellectual superiority". The Jerusalem Post. Retrieved 14 August 2021.
- ↑ Evans, Gavin (2 March 2018). "The unwelcome revival of 'race science'". The Guardian. Retrieved 14 August 2021.
- ↑ Kent, Alicia A (2007). African, Native, and Jewish American literature and the reshaping of Modernism. Macmillan. p. 124. ISBN 9781403977977. Retrieved 14 August 2021. Search this book on
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