Before the Jews of Hungary were emancipated in the 19th century, they were not permitted to own land. By the end of the century, they were on their way to owning fully one-fifth of Hungary’s large estates and were hugely successful in business and the arts. The Jews of Germany had a similar history. In the early 20th century, they comprised many if not most of the country’s lawyers, doctors, composers, playwrights and scientists, and were so astonishingly successful in business that while they were just 1 percent of the population, they were 31 percent of the richest families. What did it? Was it nature (Jews were smarter) or nurture (Jews had a certain culture)? Here’s my answer: I don’t know.
I do know, though, that if you eliminate what would certainly be condemned as a racist explanation — Jews as inherently smarter than non-Jews — then you are left with culture: There was something in the Jewish experience — 1,000 or so years of persecution and being shunted into dishonorable occupations such as money lending — that prepared Europe’s Jews for the onset of capitalism. Countless books have been written to explain this phenomenon, which continues to this day with Israel’s intellectual domination of its region. In his new book, “The Future of the Jews,” Stuart E. Eizenstat provides an example: “Between 1980 and 2000, 7,652 patents were registered by Israelis in the United States.” The figure for the entire Arab world? 367.
The cultural difference between Israel and its Arab neighbors is so striking that you would think it beyond question. But when Mitt Romney attributed the gap between Israel’s economic performance and the Palestinians’ — “Culture makes all the difference,” he said in Israel — the roof came down on him. PC police the world over raised a red card, giving him demerits for having the temerity to notice the obvious. Predictably, Saeb Erekat, chief Palestinian negotiator and a member of the executive committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization, denounced the statement as “racist.” It was, of course, just the opposite.
This is a complicated matter. It’s true that the West Bank is under Israeli occupation and parts of Gaza have been pounded into rubble. It is also true that for years the Palestinians benefited from jobs in Israel. It is true that a good many educated Palestinians live in the diaspora, but it is also true that the early diaspora consisted of Palestinian Christians fleeing Ottoman repression. (There are about 500,000 Palestinians in Chile.)
Still, for all the caveats, Arabs themselves recognize that they have a cultural problem. TheArab Human Development Report of 2002 singled out three “deficits” of Arab society that are “obstacles” to progress. One was the lack of political freedom; another was the narrow knowledge base; and the third the status of women. All of these vary across the region — Saudi Arabia’s women are forbidden to drive — but nowhere in the region are women as free as they are in the West or, for that matter, Israel. In all of vast Arabia, about half of the potential workforce is poorly educated.
This hubbub about culture may seem esoteric, but it is really very important. The tendency to hold the Arabs blameless for their own culture is part of the predilection to hold them harmless for the lack of peace agreement with Israel. The Israelis have much to account for, but they are not alone in this matter and they are not the ones who have over and over again rejected peace plans. The adamant refusal to hold the Arabs accountable infantilizes them — a neo-colonialist mentality that is, in the end, simply insulting.
The book that Romney cited for his views on Arab culture, David S. Landes’s “The Wealth and Poverty of Nations,” goes further than I would in blaming the Arabs for their own difficulties, and it was written long before the Arab Spring. But it is a vigorously written attack on the sort of thinking that blames the West for all that ails the East and for disregarding indigenous cultural problems. Landes is particularly tough on the Muslim societies of the Middle East for the plight of women — a cultural phenomenon that does not exist in Islamic Asia but does, just for the record, among Israel’s ultra-Orthodox Jews.
Romney could have been more diplomatic and eschewed a shorthand explanation of what ails Palestinian society — he might also have acknowledged Palestinian achievements — but he identified what are, indisputably, two problems. The first is that of culture. The second is the reluctance to discuss it.
@ Alanjo55:
No I said sincere repentance, meaning a change of behavior by not repeating the sin.
Sin and Atonement : Who Needs the Blood?
@ steven belsky:
“Do
notgo gentle into that good night”.@ steven belsky:
To make you feel more comfortable why don’t we discuss socialism, queers and Jewish self haters?
Then you can go screaming into the good night.
@ steven belsky:
FYI Yamit is the on site Rabbi and Hebrew scholar with special rights granted by the owner.
I kinda knew Steven you would be the first one to make a comment.
You win the Turkey award.
Once a Turkey always a Turkey
@ rongrand</
Have you ever read a comment from Yamit? Tons and tons of biblical quotations, old testament commentaries. CERTAINLY YOU JEST!!!!!
@ Alanjo55:
Alanjo55, may I remind you this is not a religious site.
This is a Jewish/Israel pundit site and not to be confused with an Evangelical site looking to convert anyone.
If you are here to discuss Israel and her people fine otherwise check your faith at the door when you enter.
We are here to support Israel and her people and fight anti-Semitism.
Thanks,
@ yamit82:
Yamit, you say, ‘to remove sin is to sincerely repent.’ Because of God’s Holiness, He must punish the sin. Can you tell me who or what can be punished for the sin we ‘sincerely repent’ of? If there is no punishment for sin our repentance is useless.
@ Alanjo55:
my first response to you is in moderation
@ Alanjo55:
Sin is defined in the Tanach, to remove sin is to sincerely repent and to not repeat our sinful behavior. We are all givnen the free choice of doing what is sinful or not. If we fail we try again. That’s what it mean to be human, (imperfect) but with the ability to become like G-d.
The merit is in the trying not it’s ultimate success.
@ Alanjo55:
Is G-d in the heart of the devil? Your ans. appears to be in the negative. Therefore your god isn’t G-d. The Jewish G-d is everywhere, yours by your conception is god limiting it stops at the devil and what you call evil. “I make peace an create evil.” “I the LORD do all these things.” (KJV)
@ yamit82:
Since God’s attribute of holiness makes it impossible for evil to be in His presence, than evil must come from an unholy source. The rules of contradiction makes this evident. The Holy God allows evil to occur for His ultimate plan to be completed. All evil will eventually be punished and confined outside of God’s realm of Holiness.
Yamit, your Biblical postings are wonderful to read. Hopefully, you will always share your Biblical thoughts and answers to mankind’s sin problem. If you have an answer or thought on the way sin can be removed from a sinner it would interesting to hear it. Do you know if there is a way to remove sin?
@ Alanjo55:
Is your god in the heart of the devil?
I have often said that if you christians want to understand Hebrew (Jewish) scriptures ask a learned Jew. You can’t, because the Jewish answers would destroy the underpinnings of your beliefs and render them as so much poppycock. ( I am trying to be kind )
Satan: the term “satan” (root word “s’tn”) appears often. The word is derived from the original Hebrew verb “satan” which means “to oppose.”
1 Samuel 29:4: The Philistines were distrustful of David, fearing that he would be a satan. (translated “adversary” or “someone who will turn against us”).
2 Samuel 19:22: Shime-i apologizes to King David. The King rejects the apology, saying that they should not be a satan to each other (translated “adversary” or “opponent”).
1 Kings 5:4: King Solomon is talking to Hiram, the King of Tyre. He says that now that there is neither satan nor bad luck to stop him, he can build the Temple. (translated as “adversary”, “enemy”, or “one who opposes”).
1 Kings 11:14: God raised up Hadad the Edomite as a satan against Solomon. (translated as “adversary,” or “opponent”). A divine messenger sent by G-d as an adversary:
Numbers 22:22 & 32: G-d appears in a dream, telling Balaam to go with the princes of Moab to meet Balak. But when Balaam sets out the next morning on his donkey, G-d is angry with him for some reason, and sent an angel/messenger to kill him. The donkey saw the angel and took evasive actions. The angel was invisible to Balaam, who beat the animal. The donkey asked Balaam why he had beat her three times. Balaam, who doesn’t seem to realize that a talking donkey is an unusual occurrence. The angel then appears and explains that he has come as a satan to kill him. (translated as “one who opposes, “withstand,” “adversary”) a member of God’s inner council; a type of chief prosecutor of Heaven: 1 Chronicles 21:1: Satan, “a supernatural evil emissary,” acting on God’s behalf,…
Job 1 and 2: Satan is described as one of the members of the court of heaven. G-d mentions that he is impressed at the behavior of Job, a blameless man who has lived an upright life. Satan attributes Job’s commendable behavior to his good fortune and says that Job would soon curse G-d if he had a string of really bad luck. G-d decides to conduct an experiment with Job; he instructs Satan to destroy all that Job has: kill his animals, murder his employees, and murder his innocent children. But, even after these disasters, Job still does not curse G-d. So G-d instructs Satan to up the ante by returning to earth and destroying Job’s health. Satan is portrayed as a servant of G-d whose task it is to dutifully carry out evil deeds at G-d’s instruction
Zechariah 3:1-7: Satan is again portrayed as a member of G-d’s council. Here he objects to the selection of Joshua as the high priest.
christians are wrapped up in pagan eschatology. No Jewish roots but wholly derived from pagan fertility religions of the time.
There have been plenty of smart Arab/Muslims throughout history. I believe it is present day Islamic practices that are responsible for dumbing down their intellects. I think it was the Ottoman Empire who in the 1500s conquered other Muslim countries, for the reasons of more power and money and that they had run out of easy Western targets, who began applying strict enforcement and rules upon Muslims that stopped the flow of scholarship coming from Muslim intellectuals and introduced restrictions (I’m speculating some here) that said Muslims were to rely on their clerics and leaders to interpret the Quran and not do it themselves, and that Muslims should keep segregated from other religions (thus ensuring they had only each other to learn from, 0 + 0= 0).
The Quran says there is no compunction in religion but is reinterpreted as you will be killed if you dare stray from Islam. There are plenty of examples of this which are purposely designed to make Muslims hate.
When one group of Crusaders arrived in Jerusalem, they were absolutely astounded at the level of learning of the Fatamid Muslims there (Muslims descended from Mohamed’s daughter Fatima). Of course the Crusaders proceeded to kill all the Jews and Muslims they could find. I have read a theory that their astonishing learning was derived from stealing the contents of the Alexandria Library in Egypt before they destroyed it, then shipped the contents to Muslim countries. Because this kept the West from using its scholarship, there is also a theory that this caused the Dark Ages in Europe. The Arabs had translated the Greek classics into Arabic, which later allowed the West to translate it into other languages. It was the Arabs who spread the concept of zero to the West during their trading voyages.
See http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/how-islamic-inventors-changed-the-world-469452.html
@ Bernard Ross:
Many more than 6 million have died. It’s guaranteed to be much worse than 6 million dying over a period of a couple years during the holocaust. As many as a billion people will die in much less than a year. None of us can understand how God is weaving all suffering and death for His glory but we can be thankful we have a God powerful enough to over rule all the affects of sin. In the end, those people in heaven will see the picture clearly at that time as God sees it now.
Alanjo55 Said:
This explanation is very comforting to the 6 million recently dead, but what is your point?
@ Bernard Ross:
In the Jewish Scriptures, in the book of Job, Satan accuses God of shielding wealthy and faithful Job when he tells God, “Have You not made a hedge about him and his house and all that he has, on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land.” Job 1:10 God has a certain amount of protection for all of us and He is the One who blesses us with all that we have. Satan wants to make us suffer by taking our things away and eventually our lives. When God lowers His hedge of protection Satan hurts us as far as God allows him to go.
Catarin Said:
I note that the studies are of ashkenazi Jews and wonder how scores compare with sephardi and mizrahi. Because “jewishness” is mainly considered to flow through the mother then it is possible that there is a non jewish influence. Children of those raped in conquest and pogroms would be ashkenazi jews. I wonder how much of the genetic content of the mixed “real” Jews, through the mother, is actually Jewish blood as compared of mixed Jews through the father. If the mix is high then the ashkenzi IQ can be also a result of the imported non jewish blood and/or the result of the combination of the mix of non jewish and jewish in the particular area. Apparently science can now provide these answers through DNA studies.
Wonder where Arabs would be had we not built the refineries…ok
It doesn’t matter what men so (world) G-d the only one to worship told us in Genesis 12 that we are to bless the Jews or be cursed. they have blessed the whole world, just as G-d said they would. Rather than going world wide to kill, still and destroy..the work hard, study and they are the brightest people I know..any one who does not believe they are the chosen people, need to realize they fall G-d a liar. time is all but up, and remember the Jews wrote the scripture, like it or not thru the Holy Spirit..and yes, they will be here forever and when Messiah comes, He will rule with His Chosen and those who love them and Him FOREVER. Time to get your hoise readu. they are my heart, and the heart of Almighty G-d, forever. So, where ever I stand I stand with Israel and the Jews and have to wonder how they put up with the enemies…serious…….Shalom
It is multifactorial. It is as simple as that!!!
Jews and Muslims have different education (learn to think VS learn to believe), goals in life, experience, genes etc….. The list is very long but you get the idea I hope.
Arabs were a transfer link between India and Persia from one side and
West. Arabs didn’t create knowledge but transfer it. All myths about their achievement are lie. They didn’t invent algebra or “zero” concept but they transfer this knowledge. Mostly they appropriated the achievements of others.
We can see from the beginning some Jews possessed a high intellect because they produced the Torah over a period of hundreds of years. The literary critic Harold Bloom said the writing was not equaled until Shakespeare came along. The content was produced through the work of many Jewish scholars and scribes who trusted it to generation after generation of editing and safekeeping. From the start the Jews were highly capable and competent.
Because they kept their bloodlines pure, except for an occasional marriage outside of the group, the genes for intelligence grew but at the same time came genetic disorders. This is a process that in one way or another affects everyone. This is the basics I’ve been taught, but there are updates. I’d guess following the Jewish Torah laws played a big part in keeping groups of Jews together.
Adam Said:
…no it did NOT, you musloid-ass-kisser!
OR they are not held accountable because they have an infantile culture. Perhaps a dose of “spare the rod and spoil the child” will help.
yamit82 Said:
I agree, this condition is barely recognized. I have marveled that Israel has not suddenly gone postal and slaughtered everyone around them. I would think this to be a more “normal” reaction to world jew hatred. Most “sane” people would have gone paranoid already and blown everyone away. Perhaps Jewish neuroses have saved the world.
Alanjo55 Said:
I think this is a bit of a stretch, especially for the six million.
Our daughters played volleyball in grammer school and our youngest is in her last year of high school and plays for a high school team. As the years went by we knew girls who played club volleyball whose parents paid thousands of dollars for the club and some even paid extra for private lessons. We couldn’t pay for club and my daughter even said she would never want us to. We always thought girls who played club volleyball would be highly skilled and wondered why some girls were not that talented after playing many years in club, for my daughters were passing these other girls in ability. Finally, one day a coach told us, ‘If God didn’t put it in them you can’t get it out.’ Because of her height and ability our daughter received a scholarship to play in club and she helped her team finish in the bronze category in the Junior Olympics. Many scouts saw her play and she has been heavily recruited and offered full four year scholarships from many colleges and universities. A coach who recruited her told me, ‘God has given your daughter a great ability to play volleyball.’
In the same way, I believe the Jews have higher ability than normal because God has given them the ability. Every Jew I’ve met has had this unique attribute in some way. The one word that proves the existence of God is ‘Jew.’ Atheists don’t exist but any agnostic would know God exists by honestly looking at what the Jews have done while throughout centuries gentiles have put them down. God has His hand on every Jew and protects them.
The Jew is Satan’s nemesis and he knows if he can get rid of the Jew, God’s plan will be defeated, this is why Jews have suffered so much. The Jew has suffered at the hand of Satan. Thankfully the Jews and Israel will always exist.
Abraham’s Children:
http://www.abrahamschildren.net/interviewFlashAC.htm
Yamit, the West learnt from Islam, what do you mean statistically the West led in brains and inventions? The renaissance came about because for over 700 years, the West used to lap up from the Muslim empires. The Arabs, the Turks, from Muslim (mughal) India, not the other way round.
If Samuel Fistels criteria is applied, then the Arabs are more ‘chosen’. they acheived much in so little time, and only since Mo gave them Islam not before.
The Genius of Arab Civilization
http://www.historytoday.com/francis-robinson/genius-arab-civilization
By Francis Robinson | Published in 1985
Samuel fistel,
But the the same could be said for the Arabs. They sit upon the richest wealth in history for which they do no have to even work, leave alone use their brain,
Talking of intelligence, again the Muslims have invented the foundations of civilisation. The West took from them, not the other way round.
Jews and high IQ:
In America, we used to give IQ tests to everyone to see where we should place them within the public school system.
The data underwent further analysis in the book “The Bell Curve”. It showed that “what you see is what you get”. People who seem smarter do score higher in IQ tests, and people who seem dumber score lower. Moreover, nations that are economically successful are composed of people who score higher on average, and poor nations score lower. The results were entirely consistent with the idea that human intelligence is genetically inherited.
Of note, Ashkenazi Jews scored highest in the world, fully consistent with their achievements in science and intellectual pursuits. The scientific field currently demanding the highest IQ is theoretical physics, and it is dominated by Ashkenazi Jews. Liberals won’t discuss it, but there are only a small number of people in the entire world with an IQ high enough to master theoretical physics, and most of them are Ashkenazi Jews. And you easily recognize these future geniuses when they are small children, as they are way smarter than everyone else from earliest youth. And no matter how hard you try, and how much money you spend, you cannot take a kid with a low IQ and turn him into an accomplished theoretical physicist.
Conversely, blacks score poorly on IQ tests, and nations on earth composed predominantly of blacks generally do not do well economically.
Atheistic liberals are horrified by these facts, and desperately try to spin them. They insist that human beings are just talking monkeys, and that Darwinian genetics are just as applicable to human beings as they are to monkeys. But then they turn around and say that, although intelligence is entirely determined by genetics in monkeys; in contrast, intelligence in human beings (talking monkeys) is the only trait in nature not determined by genetics. They insist that all human beings are equally intelligent, and all will turn into geniuses if you just teach them properly. And therefore, IQ tests lack any predictive value or any worth.
This is particularly interesting because in Texas, they just executed a black guy who scored low in IQ tests. And by no surprise, the atheistic liberals insist that, in the case of this black man, the IQ test was completely valid, and that that black man should not be executed because his IQ test “proved” he was mentally retarded, while IQ tests given to all other blacks and all whites remain invalid and meaningless.
The author of “The Bell Curve” cannot figure out why Jew have high IQs, since they are an otherwise unremarkable semitic people, and all their semitic neighbors do not have high IQs.
It’s almost as if HaShem give Jews a high IQ to show the “international community” that Jews are His Chosen People.
No, they don’t. The blame is solely with the muslims themselves.
Wrong. Muslim societies outside of the Middle East are just as repressive of women. Afghanistan, Pakistan etc.
Nevertheless, despite these minor flaws in the article, this is a suprisingly good and politically incorrect editorial from the very liberal Richard Cohen.
Westerners statistically have achieved better than Arabs throughout history. Could all the previous generations have been wrong; that no Arab throughout history was sufficiently educated and or intelligent to come up with a major invention? We had a joke here in Israel when I first arrived: “The only thing the Arabs ever created was the desert”
Generalizations about Arab intellect is presumed racists by leftist and liberals in the West. Leftists sophistically widen the meaning of racism to accuse the detractors of their pet nations and racial/ethnic groups like Black Africans and Arabs, as immoral racists, but leftists generalize the other way in presuming Arabs to be good and smart.
I don’t care if the Arabs could have achieved decent intellectual results if they had been forced to attend universities from seventh century onwards; absent positive evidence of their achievements, it is logical to presume them stupid.
Jews were exiled from Spain largely in response to the exploding influence of the Marranos, the converted Jews. As Christian converts, they encountered no restrictions and almost took over Spanish society.
Jews,I think are the most neurotic people on the planet. Neurotic Jews with their pervasive case of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) produce an unusual number of geniuses. About 10% more men than women have non-average intellectual abilities. Of those, the majority is incredibly stupid, but some are incredibly smart. Women are a bit smarter than men on average, but entirely lack geniuses. Whether that has to do with evolution, biology, or Providence is a matter of one’s degree of atheism.
The Jews throughout our history have oscillated between extreme danger and windows of opportunity, the highest religious mission and the lowest temporary existence, self-righteousness and persecution. Relative to Gentiles, the Jews developed an enterprising spirit. The pressure cooker of antisemitism and the restrictions imposed upon Jews is probably the main reason for Jewish successes.
Luckily, a besieged existence in the embattled state of Israel creates ghetto-like pressure on Jews and produces the requisite number of mental disorders. The Jewish nation produces many very smart people, but a hundred times more morons.
Do we want a normal nation of macho Jews or a people possessed with OCD, but sprouting geniuses?
For thousands of years, Jews held different values and observances from the rest of the world. Our ancestors could remain Jewish while living in Poland. Not anymore. Today, Jews can share their value system with many peoples, and can only differentiate ourselves by living in our land.