For $2.95:
Jewish Genius
Charles Murray
April 2007
Abstract –
Since its first issue in 1945, COMMENTARY has published hundreds of articles about Jews and Judaism. As one would expect, they cover just about every important aspect of the topic. But there is a lacuna, and not one involving some obscure bit of Judaica. COMMENTARY has never published a systematic discussion of one of the most obvious topics of all: the extravagant overrepresentation of Jews, relative to their numbers, in the top ranks of the arts, sciences, law, medicine, finance, entrepreneurship, and the media.
I have personal experience with the reluctance of Jews to talk about Jewish accomplishment—my co-author, the late Richard Herrnstein, gently resisted the paragraphs on Jewish IQ that I insisted on putting in The Bell Curve (1994). Both history and the contemporary revival of anti-Semitism in Europe make it easy to understand the reasons for that reluctance. But Jewish accomplishment constitutes a fascinating and important story. Recent scholarship is expanding our understanding of its origins.
My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer
Posts
161 comments:
Every great Jewish mathematician and physicist can trace their mathematical and physics geneaology back to the great German Christian mathematicians of the past(Mathematics ancestry project)
Murray is repellent creature. I despise him. He is an economic reactionary looking for a biological justification for brutal wage slavery,possibly even chattel slavery.
Jupiter
Just as soon as anonymous writes, "the revelation that Jews are genetically smarter on average than any other group would probably decrease anti-semitism...", Jupiter refutes this logic. Heh.
It's primarily the Jupiters of the world who hate Jews, because they 1) resent Jews' economic success; 2) tend to struggle economically themselves; 3) view the economy as zero-sum, so that if a Jew or an Asian starts a business, they are taking away opportunities from gentile whites instead of creating new ones.
As Sailer has pointed out, even the Nazis were aware that the average German Jew was smarter than the average non-German Jew -- that's why they banned IQ tests. Of course, the Jupiters among them might have argued it was to prevent the poor Christian Germans from being subjected to wage slavery by their Jewish oppressors, or some similar claim.
Ian,
Race realism might defuse some of the allegations of tribalism that people level at Jews, however. What I mean by this is that if it were common knowledge that Jews scored 15 points higher on IQ tests than gentile whites, next time someone privately noticed that the media was dominated by Jews, the knee jerk reaction might go from "the bastards stick together," to "well, they're smart and verbally-oriented, so..."
Marcz,
"What I mean by this is that if it were common knowledge that Jews scored 15 points higher on IQ tests than gentile whites..."
This sounds a little high -- do you have a source?
What I mean by this is that if it were common knowledge that Jews scored 15 points higher on IQ tests than gentile whites...
This sounds a little high -- do you have a source?
If I recall correctly, it was in The Bell Curve.
I'm not giving Jews $2.95 to read about how great they are....
One lesson of The Bell Curve was that non-Jewish cognitive elites will form as the tendency for smart people to marry each increases.
"I'm not giving Jews $2.95 to read about how great they are...."
Spoken like a cheap Jew
Jupiter
Excuse me, I'm a thrifty Gentile.
The previous Jupiter post-"cheap Jews" was not by the real Jupiter
Jupiter
Jews are good at learning and using intellectual systems created by others; they are not good at creating anything for themselves. The achievements of non-Jews, particularly white Europeans, are far broader and far deeper.
"Jews are good at learning and using intellectual systems created by others; they are not good at creating anything for themselves."
How about creating Christianity, which has been the religion of white Europeans since they gave up paganism?
"the revelation that Jews are genetically smarter on average than any other group would probably decrease anti-semitism, not increase it, engendering much more respect than resentment"
You're trolling, right?
How about we test this theory over in the middle east. "Hey guys you can stop hating the Jews now -- they're actually much much smarter than you Arabs. In fact, it would be best if y'all just hand over your oil and then go self-genocide to make room for Greater Israel."
Also, the diaspora Chinese have trouble in places like Malaysia because they're so much more competent than the locals.
The interesting thing and one that might breed resentment is that a Jewish majority may not make a country do so well. This may be because the northern Europeans (Japanese also) ability to work together and trust may make them the better work force.
the reverse of idiocracy. the smartest have the most kids, the dumbest the fewest.
the knee jerk reaction might go from "the bastards stick together," to "well, they're smart and verbally-oriented, so..."
I really doubt it. Granted, I am in no way advocating Ani-Semitism. I am simply saying that if some place were to have a large minority of Jews in, say Brooklyn, in 30 years (purely hypothetical) and then with greater intelligence and know-how most of the banks and other high-end financial services were then owned and dominated by Jews...with the other low- end jobs dominated by everyone else, well, resentment would be very high.
Jupiter even gets the stereotype wrong:
Jupiter, Jews are not known for being cheap but for being shrewd. The Scottish stereotype is cheap. Jews actually have a reputation of demanding much but generously rewarding good work.
Jewish dominance of media and other important institutions in America has more to do with nepotism than super high IQs.
...then the Nazis would not have banned IQ tests...
Where's the hard evidence for this? All I've been able to Google is reference to a book by Hans Eysenck.
It's plausible they may have discouraged their use, but banned them?
We are not fighting genes or blood or a race; those are Talmudic and Kabbalistic obsessions clandestinely conveyed into our civilization by means of the Social-Darwinist and Hitlerian belt of transmission. Originally this racism was a rabbinic meme, reflecting the ancient megalomania of the Pharisaic sect at Jerusalem.
We are fighting not a race of people but a spiritual and ideological toxin, which infects Judaics and gentiles with equal virulence. These spiritual toxins are the dogmas embodied within Orthodox Judaism, war-Zionism and their various step-children in the Western occult as personified by Hitler's hero, the Kabbalist Giordano Bruno, as well as Pico della Mirandola, Reuchlin, Dee, Pike, Crowley and their infernal Rosicrucian, Masonic and OTO branches, including the Skull and Bones demonology of George W. Bush, who was initiated in New Haven, CT in 1968. (This writer owns a photocopy of the official Skull and Bones --"Russell Trust" -- roll, giving Bush's date of initiation and biography).
When the great French writer and virtuoso anti-rabbinic polemicist, L.F. Céline, wandered the salons of Paris during the Nazi occupation, he was invited to speak at various anti-Jewish conferences, where "Jews" were denounced with great fervor. He sat in the back of the room at one such gathering, disgruntled and mumbling imprecations. Thinking Celine resentful because he was in the rear, the organizers invited him to come up to the dais and join the assembled Vichy dignitaries as they denounced "Jewish bullsh**t." But Celine only stood up and shouted, "What about Aryan bulls**t? Why don't you talk about that for a change?" and then he stalked off.
http://www.revisionisthistory.org/essay23.html
No, Rast, I'm not trolling, but you are. Your comment is juvenile and incoherent. Obviously, your mind is made up about Jews, regardless of the intelligence issue.
Ever notice that at any televised sporting event, there are more Jews in the broadcasting booth than on the field/floor/rink?
Contrary to what many Jews seem to believe, the revelation that Jews are genetically smarter on average than any other group would probably decrease anti-semitism, not increase it, engendering much more respect than resentment. And Jews should embrace this recognition and drop the Uriah Heep "I'm so 'umble" routine.
I don't think it matters whether or not they are recognized as being smarter. What matters is whether they are perceived as defending their own ethnic interests at the expense of the rest of society. I'm not antisemitic, but when I read crap like this, even my blood tends to boil. If Jews are smarter, then they will have more power. That includes the power to seriously mess things up for the rest of us.
a sure fire 100+ comment artcile for steve :)
Joe said...Jewish dominance of media and other important institutions in America has more to do with nepotism than super high IQs.
I think there is something to this comment, and i think we often end up with second rate, art, literature, architecture and science because of it.
Also for 'smart' people many of them sure do a lot of dumb things - embracing communism wholesale, advocating open borders which has directly resulted in muslims surpassing them in numbers in the US....aggressively attacking Protestant Christian institutions...
oh and did i mention founding an ethno religous state and demanding the capital be the most holy city in chrisianity and 3rd most holy in islam?
"Also for 'smart' people many of them sure do a lot of dumb things - embracing communism wholesale, advocating open borders which has directly resulted in muslims surpassing them in numbers in the US...."
According to the American Religious Identification Survey, 2.8 million Americans 18 and over were Jewish as of 2001, compared to 1.1 million Muslims. If current trends continue, you will be right, but it doesn't look like we're there yet.
http://www.gc.cuny.edu/faculty/research_briefs/aris/key_findings.htm
"Just for blaming us for Iraq -- even though we overwhelmingly voted against Bush, and the vast majority of us were against the war -- I am going to send extra donations to my pro open-borders Congressman. More Mexicans to dilute your earning power and your political power. Enjoy."
Gotta love ethnic politics... *sigh*
I wonder, has there ever been a pogrom of a local chapter of Mensa?
I reckon that the Sailerian approach is intended to allow society to handle the truth in a constructive fashion. The United States is not East Africa, or not even Germany anno 1933. It might not be risk-free, but it's not "dumb dumb dumb".
Pre-conditions for maintaining reasonable ethnic relations even in the face of, say, some level of recognition of jewish smarts, are pretty good in the present-day US.
Bolsjevism is not banging on the door, mass unemployment is not ravaging the land, there is some level of social security, and there are formerly unseen levels of accessible luxury, medicine and technology. In addition, jews are far less "visible" due to extensive intermarriage.
I'm not saying it's going to be a smooth ride (many of the comments here attest to that), but the truth, if properly handled, is probably better than the alternative - I.e. trying to maintain an ever more precarious lie.
Just for blaming us for Iraq [...] and the vast majority of us were against the war.
Although neo-conservatives and other Lobby leaders were eager to invade Iraq, the broader American Jewish community was not. Just after the war started, Samuel Freedman reported that ‘a compilation of nationwide opinion polls by the Pew Research Center shows that Jews are less supportive of the Iraq war than the population at large, 52 per cent to 62 per cent.’ Clearly, it would be wrong to blame the war in Iraq on ‘Jewish influence’. Rather, it was due in large part to the Lobby’s influence, especially that of the neo-conservatives within.
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n06/mear01_.html
So it wasn't a vast majority against - it was about half and half. Let's face it: many Jews instinctively perceived that the war was undetaken in Israeli interests.
I've read numerous accounts of wealthy jews giving other jews gobs of money for capitalization, no strings attached).
If that was iSteve's reasoning behind publicising his supposed Jew-ishness, it failed to materialize. Maybe iSteve should follow Commentary's example, and start charging readers for exclusive material. Not $2.95, of course. Maybe $0.35 a whack.
....Anyway, back to the subject of "Jewish genius".
When examined, it's really a matter of "Ashkenazi genius", since the Sephardim and Mizrahi have roughly the same IQ profile as generic Europeans.
Why are Seph/Miz and Ash so different? Let's not forget that before the Ash left for northern Europe they were part of the same group as the Seph.
Two things happened to the Ash.
Firstly, they became experts at usury and merchants. These vocations sharpened their numerical and verbal skills. Of course it also bought in a lot of money. (in contrast, the Seph professionals were doctors etc)
Secondly, mitochondrial DNA evidence suggests that the Ash men were far more likely to have children with local women - perhaps because like all wandering peoples (Vikings etc), the wanderers were mainly composed of men. Now, what kind of woman does a man who has earned a fortune get? Well, he chooses who he wants, and the ladies are generally happy and flattered to oblige. The Ash man, with his wealth and power, could choose the cream of the local population - Slav or German. The slower-witted local men had less luck.
In conclusion, the "Jewish Genius" is the the result of the sharpening of the mind caused by their occupation, together with producing kids with the local premium-grade shiksas. Of course, I doubt this chain of events will give either Blonde or Semitic chauvinists much reason for pride.
If Jews feel it's best to conceal the fact that, as a group, they're smart, this feeds the stereotype that they are not honest.
Steve, how about a piece on British genius, because the last time I checked, the most successful ethnic minority have to be those damn limeys.
"To me jews are white... the same white as me and any other european american. I don't get it."
Maybe you should start by examining your own beliefs and assumptions? Perhaps before dismissing people as irrational "haters", you should attempt to learn what they believe and why they believe it?
Here is some reading material to start with:
Kevin MacDonald
Jewish Tribal Review
Jewish genetics
"It's galactically obvious that ethnic nepotism has at least as much to do with collective jewish success as intelligence."
Great point. All those Jews on the Swedish Academy always vote to give Nobel Prizes to other Jews, no matter how unqualified they are.
"Some Jews are hostile to white Americans and deeply paranoid about fundamentalist Christians, the handful of Klansmen still in existence, and plain old WASP America generally."
I was against illegal immigration and perfectly happy to live in a majority white Christian country until I read all the Jew-hating posts on this blog. If you don't want to respect me as a fellow citizen, even though my ancestors have been here for a hundred years and contributed plenty to this country, then fuck you. Bring on the Mexicans, I say.
"Jews will still be facing the prospect of inhabiting a nation that looks increasingly like Latin America and, last I checked, Jews weren't flocking to move there."
We were when our home countries were filled with Jupiters and Svigors, and we did quite well in some Latin American countries. We'll take our chances with the Latin Americans over white hate groups. It's not that we aren't aware that there are blacks you hate us (despite us fucking creating the NAACP for them) and Hispanics who hate us, but they present less of a threat.
Powerful and insightful use of sarcasm, 4:34!
Clearly politcs play no role in the awarding of Nobel Prizes. Moreover, Jews are particularly unskilled in lobbying and self-promotion.
I'm considering nominating Steve for a Nobel prize.
Steve, which category would you prefer?
I recall last year Matt Yglesias, in one of those unfortunate and glib toss-offs that make up so much of the daily blogging stream, stated that he didn't see much of a problem, for American Jews in particular, with high rates of unskilled Mexican immigration because there hasn't been much of a history of anti-Semitism in Mexico.
It's hard to imagine he's unaware of postwar South American history, but after Mexico and Central America, illegal and unskilled immigration from there is fractional, so I suppose this can be forgiven.
Had he bothered to take a look (or perhaps he didn't find it relevant), he might have discovered that a Spanish language version of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion was published in Mexico last year and sold well.
He might furthermore have noticed that out of a population of just under a hundred million, Mexico has about 40,000 Jews, mostly professionals living in Mexico City, and yes, they have been targeted by anti-Semitic groups for the usual reasons. What's the percentage of 40k out of 100 million? Point zero four? Well, they are resourceful south of the border with their bigotry.
Most recent Hispanic immigrants wouldn't know a Jew from another gringo; let's see how their children react to the inculcation of Brown Power advocates in the education system and their resentment-intensive "analysis", such as it is. Perhaps they will make the same distinction between white gringos and Jews as the WNs, only a favorable one. Perhaps not.
The idea of replacing "spics for hicks" (excuse me, couldn't help myself), is not only immoral, it's insanely stupid.
And what so many will not acknowledge is that what is also happening is that black Americans are being "replaced" by this new and (so far but not for another generation or two, rest assured) compliant and happily underpaid group--as Steve has pointed out before, these people being shoved aside don't just disappear (well, in L.A. they are being ethnically cleansed by street gangs a la Baghdad--this is what your proposal looks like, Chaim), but they seek redress through the political process, or worse.
At some point we might want to start pursuing policies that encourage the creation of a skilled-labor black working class beyond the affirmative action middle class. Call me a dreamer, but I still hold out hope for a post affirmative action America (play the melodramatic strains of Lennon's god-awful Imagine here).
Be as resentful as you want toward any particular group, I don't really care, but it's in everybody's interest that we mitigate as best we can, outside of the gov. racial spoils system, the sources of friction and resentment, which are not entirely but largely a result of economic competition between unequally performing ethnic groups (largely responsible anti-Semtism's enduring nature).
African Americans weren't particularly anti-Asian before coming into contact with them either; I personally have sat still for delusional rants from blacks angry at Korean store owners (shortly before the Rodney King riots). I say delusional because they were full of gov. conspiracies and the like. Very much like anti-Semitism. But if I were Chaim, for instance, I would probably be thinking along the lines of controlling immigration to weight it toward skilled and higher-IQ groups that aren't going to seek me out the moment law and order breaks down.
I don't believe the vast majority of Jews think in these absurd terms, playing the goyim off of one another, but they do feel cowed into supporting unlimited immigration because of their unique history. They should not expect reciprocity, however.
How are post-civil rights movement African American political thinkers (did I hear someone chortle?) treating Jews these days, anyway? Where's gratitude, indeed.
I view Chaim as being more sarcastic than serious and as mainly trying to get a rise out of people like Jupiter, Josh Randall, and Svigor. He may or may not actually believe in increased Mexican immigration, but either way sane readers of this site should realize they're not his primary target and ignore him.
Is Anonymous 4:57 really trying to insinuate that Jews haven't deserved most of their Nobel Prizes in the hard sciences? I agree, of course, that Peace and Literature are often subjective, but it's rare that a hard science prize is given for something that later proves to be false or unimportant.
Furthermore, until 1945 (at least)Jewish background was probably more a hindrance than a help. (This was certainly the case in American academia, and America was one of the most Jewish-friendly nations.) I don't know how much it can be blamed on anti-Semitism, but personal animius toward Einstein by committee members caused him to never be awarded the Prize for either the special or general theory of relativity, rather receiving it for his lesser (but still brilliant) work on the photoelectric effect.
Dennis Dale,
I recall last year Matt Yglesias, in one of those unfortunate and glib toss-offs that make up so much of the daily blogging stream, stated that he didn't see much of a problem, for American Jews in particular, with high rates of unskilled Mexican immigration because there hasn't been much of a history of anti-Semitism in Mexico.
Of course, there are several reasons for this. Undoubtedly, none of which Yglesias bothered to consider carefully. Here are a few:
(1) The historic Jewish population in Mexico would largely be Sephardic Jews. The Sephardim have IQ scores in the range of white Europeans.
(2) The Sephardim, especially in Latin America, have been for the most part secretive about their Judaism. They have been the quintessential "crypto-Jews" and have attempted to make themselves indistinguishable from the greater population to the point of often practicing Catholicism outwardly.
(3) As you've already pointed out, the Jewish population has been small in number.
good grief,
these comments are ridiculous!!!!!!
REAL racists are beginning to read the blog.
Jews have worked hard and done well academically. They have higher IQ's more often than not than most other races (northern Asiatics possilbly excepted).
For all of you complaining about them from some sort of white nationalist perspective, if your kids were as fired up about their homework in math, physics, and biology as they were with how many homeruns they hit in little league, getting their benchpress up, starting on the basketball team, and being the most popular boy or girl in school, YOUR Little Darlings might be academic standouts as well.
Miles
Well, cultural factors do play a role - winners are also disproportionately American, and these two factors are surely connected - but which came first?
In general, this argument will go in circles unless and until you provide specific examples of Jewish Nobel Prize winners you think were unworthy. When you do that, we can have a fuller discussion.
Chaim is either a wingnut or possibly just being sarcastic, as Kabala said, but he and Tommy raised the issue of Jews in Latin America and it made me think of something. Consider two leading countries in South America: one is virtually all-white (Argentina) and the other about half white, 10% black, a couple percent Asian, and the rest mullato (Brazil). Both have about 1-2% Jewish populations. How have Jews fared in both?
Jews have been discriminated against and persecuted in Argentina (less so today), while they have thrived in Brazil. Brazil's greatest architect (and one of the world's great architects) is a Jew; one of its most highly-regarded mayors and urban planners is a Jew; some of its best businessmen and scientists are Jews, etc. These Jews are predominantly Ashkenazi and while they are proud Brazilians, they aren't shy about their Jewishness: even the Hasidic Jews have their Chabad House blocks from the beach in the upscale neighborhood of Leblon in Rio de Janeiro.
So, what accounts for this tale of two countries? It may be simply because Argentina was a fascist regime allied to Nazi Germany, and Brazil was on the Allies' side in World War II; it may just be a coincidence that Jews have done better in multi-racial Brazil. But if not, maybe it's not so illogical for some Jews to feel more comfortable in a multi-racial America? Particularly when white supremacists continually remind them that they are unwanted, alien.
Worth thinking about. Also worth remembering is that the first Jews came to America 350 years ago -- refugees from the city of Recife in Brazil. When the tolerant Dutch colony there fell to the Portuguese who were still wrapped up in the Inquisition, the Recife Jews were forced to flee. They settled in another Dutch colony: New Amsterdam, which became New York City. Recife's loss was New York City's gain.
Kabala,
"Well, cultural factors do play a role - winners are also disproportionately American, and these two factors are surely connected - but which came first?"
A.A. Michelson came first. He was the first American to win a Nobel Prize in Physics, in 1907, for inventing the interferometer to measure the speed of light. He was also a Jew.
Then again, maybe he just got that prize out of nepotism, which is how Jews succeed, according to the brilliant svigger.
Recife's loss was New York City's gain.
Peter Stuyvasent did not want them in he was forced to accept them.
Even the founder of Zionism, Herzel said jewish interest will always be in conflict with gentile interests...
anyway in america the problem might fade out - if jew feel 'safer' in a multicultural society, they're finding its a double edged sword as their intermarriage rate is above 50%.
Going by Murray's numbers, Jews account for about 30% of Nobel laureates from the mid-20th century onward. So either the mean IQ of Nobel laureates is much higher than 140 (unlikely), or you need to look beyond intelligence to explain Jewish success in this area.
Two observations:
(1) As a science student who has had professors who are friends with Nobel Prize winners I can say that ambitiousness and connections have a lot to do with who gets the prize. There are scientists who really want that prize and they work hard their whole career to obtain it. A scientist who isn't after it for the glory stands a far less chance of winning the Prize regardless of the importance of their research.
(2) When it comes to the Nobel Prize in Literature, there is a high degree of subjectivity. For example, in 1966 they gave the Prize to S.Y. Agnon and Nelly Sachs as a sort of post-Holocaust sympathy vote. I seriously doubt many members of the Nobel committee even read Agnon's work and I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't read Sachs either. Much of the charm of Agnon's The Bridal Canopy is said to come from the clever employment of Hebrew in the original work. These sort of semantic features don't survive translation. In English, The Bridal Canopy is an exceedingly dull, monotonous work. I've read the work and it ain't no Isaac Bashevis Singer novel, that's for sure. The idea that all the people on the committee comparing the work to so many others actually read the Hebrew original stretches credulity.
The whole notion of a world literary prize, with no regard for the language novels are written in, is ridiculous and impossible to implement with any sort of objectivity. There is simply no way judges can be expected to seriously compare a myriad of novels written in so many languages to one another. A Nobel Prize in English Literature or a Nobel Prize in French Literature would be more sensible but obviously wouldn't be international in scope.
...personal animius toward Einstein by committee members caused him to never be awarded the Prize for either the special or general theory of relativity....
He plagiaraized a good bit of that. Perhaps that played a part.
which is how Jews succeed, according to the brilliant svigger. oh come on dude, no one is denying that there are a lot of smart jews, but its equally foolish to deny the blatant ethnocentrism practiced by many jews. Philip Weiss in the New York Observer even had an article that blatantly stated just that. Its self evident to non jews - perhaps jews are unaware they do it, but I have seen enough examples in my own life to think that its often intentional.
Personally, I am WASP I don't have any problem with it, I have a problem with the hypocrisy and that is what pisses most non jews off.
Open immigration for the US, jewish only immigration for Israel, etc, etc, ad nauseam.
"...personal animius toward Einstein by committee members caused him to never be awarded the Prize for either the special or general theory of relativity...."
-------------------------------------
"He plagiaraized a good bit of that. Perhaps that played a part."
You're both wrong. Einstein didn't get the Nobel for relativity because the reviewer wasn't knowledgeable enough to understand it -- he wasn't even a physicist. So the Nobel committee gave Einstein the Nobel for the photoelectric effect years later -- sort of like how the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences gave Charlie Kaufman the best screenplay Oscar for The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind when they should have given him one for Being John Malkovich.
So, what accounts for this tale of two countries? It may be simply because Argentina was a fascist regime allied to Nazi Germany, and Brazil was on the Allies' side in World War II; it may just be a coincidence that Jews have done better in multi-racial Brazil.
It could also be that the Portuguese have always been less severe with the Jews than Spanish. Then again, one of my high school friends was half-Brazilian and half-Czech. He and his mother were both virulently antisemitic.
Tommy,
"The whole notion of a world literary prize, with no regard for the language novels are written in, is ridiculous and impossible to implement with any sort of objectivity."
It's true that objectivity is difficult with literature prizes, but language isn't an insurmountable issue. After all, you imply that you have a favorable opinion of I.B. Singer's work -- that was originally written in Yiddish (though he had the benefit of a translator who was a great writer in his own right, Saul Bellow).
I haven't read Agnon, so I won't comment on him, but it's obvious that sometimes the Swedish Academy awards the literature prize for political reasons and other times for merit. Examples of political awards, IMHO are the ones to Harold Pinter (a Bush-hating, atheist British Jew), Derek Walcott (Caribbean poet), Maya Angelo (American black woman), and Darien Fo (Italian anarchist/leftist). Examples of worthy winners, again IMHO: Saul Bellow, I.B. Singer, V.S. Naipaul.
Tommy,
"It could also be that the Portuguese have always been less severe with the Jews than Spanish."
Um, remember the part about the Portuguese kicking the Jews out of Brazil? Jews only started to do well in Brazil after it became independent of Portugal and it welcomed waves of non-Portuguese European immigrants in the 19th Century.
"To me jews are white... the same white as me and any other european american. I don't get it."
This was my comment, so I'm going to reply to all the people who replied to me.
I see two similar responses.
1) The WNs are being tribal like every other race is tribal, and the jews aren't a part of that tribe, and both sides agree on that fact.
2) We would treat the jews as part of the whites, but they are tribal themselves, and work against non-jew whites, and so therefore we must work against them as well.
Also I there was a comment about the distinction between "regular" jews on the street and jew-politics. The many regular jews that I've known, gone to school with, and been good friends with (in fact the majority of my white friends), are somewhat apolitical, if anything just regular liberals indistinguishable from other white liberals, and not very tribal or jewishy at all. The liberalness although a flaw, is not fatal. (The jews I know are upper middle class secular jews from the suburbs, that may be a factor).
There's probably a lot of jews giving a lot of money to jewish orgs that are then using that money to do much more extreme and tribal things with it than the people giving the money would do themselves or even want done.
I guess I get it more now, though I think it's silly. In any case jews are consistently among the best people I know, so I'm going to continue to like them.
"I wonder, has there ever been a pogrom of a local chapter of Mensa?
LOL! Yeah, round up all those smart people and hang 'em from the nearest lamppost."
Two thoughts for you Mensa members:
1) There aren't enough lumpen folks who have heard of Mensa to carry out a half-decent pogram.
2) Mensa members haven't been demonized for two thousand years as Christ killers.
One small correction: Maya Angelous never won a Nobel Prize (thank goodness); Toni Morrison did. I haven't read her books and therefore can't comment.
I was against illegal immigration and perfectly happy to live in a majority white Christian country until I read all the Jew-hating posts on this blog.
Is that B'nai Brith and other Jewish organizations' excuse for supporting non-white immigration too? We were all for this country and all, but Steve Sailer and friends made us do it.
If you don't want to respect me as a fellow citizen, even though my ancestors have been here for a hundred years and contributed plenty to this country, then fuck you.
Tell us how you really feel. I don't think I've disrespected anyone. I've simply noted that some Jews don't respect this country. I try to give most Jews the benefit of the doubt, but I cannot extend such a courtesy to the Jewish lobby. They know what they're doing. Jews have gotten more respect in this country than they've ever gotten in Europe or practically anywhere else. The end result is that we have the Jewish lobby attempting to transform the United States into a part of Latin America. Do they deserve my respect too?
We were when our home countries were filled with Jupiters and Svigors, and we did quite well in some Latin American countries. We'll take our chances with the Latin Americans over white hate groups. It's not that we aren't aware that there are blacks you hate us (despite us fucking creating the NAACP for them) and Hispanics who hate us, but they present less of a threat.
If America becomes increasingly racially divided, then Jews will not be presented with less of a threat. Quite the contrary. Still, if present-day WASP America bothers you, and you hate this country, then I suggest hopping the next flight to Tel Aviv. I'm sick of delusional, paranoid Jews who think a Klansman is hiding around every corner and behind every mailbox. Honestly, most of white America doesn't give a damn about the Jews. The average white don't spend two seconds a month thinking about them and when they do, it is entirely in terms of politically correct platitudes. Most Americans haven't foggiest awareness of Jewish ethnocentrism. For the most part, they regard Jews as just another group of white people who practice a different religion. I guess some Jews are awfully anxious to change that perception.
Quick question for you, no Googling: Can you tell me who the Deputy Secretary of Defense was under Clinton...Most be a fucking powerful position if no one even remembers who these guys were. I guess they weren't Jews.
William Cohen.
Dave,
Um, remember the part about the Portuguese kicking the Jews out of Brazil? Jews only started to do well in Brazil after it became independent of Portugal and it welcomed waves of non-Portuguese European immigrants in the 19th Century.
Actually, I was thinking more along the lines of the fact that the Spanish expelled or killed every Jew they could find in Spain. The Portuguese merely demanded they convert to Catholicism and, when large numbers of Portuguese Jews went on practicing their religion in secret, the Portuguese didn't really make more than a token effort at weeding them out.
I'm not very knowledgeable about Brazilian history. That detail is something new to me. Thanks.
William Cohen.
Sorry. I didn't read that carefully enough. You said the "Deputy Secretary of Defense" not the "Secretary of Defense." Cohen was Sec. of Defense. I don't know who was under him.
Your whole argument is silly though. Clearly Wolfowitz and Perle had much to do with the Bush administration's Iraq Attaq.
"One small correction: Maya Angelous never won a Nobel Prize (thank goodness); Toni Morrison did. I haven't read her books and therefore can't comment."
True, desculpe-me, as the Portuguese say.
"Even the founder of Zionism, Herzel said jewish interest will always be in conflict with gentile interests..."
Before becoming the founder of modern Zionism, Theodore Herzl was a model assimilated, secular Jew. Like most post-emancipation Jews, he thrived in late 19th Century Europe as a European -- he didn't think his Jewish background was that relevant anymore. What changed his mind was the Dreyfus Affair.
When Jupiter-like French Catholics falsely accused another assimilated Jew -- Alfred Dreyfus, an artillery captain in the French army -- of treason, Herzel realized that Jews would never be accepted as Frenchmen, or Germans, etc., no matter how assimilated they became.
The Dreyfus affair was quite an ironic thing. The anti-dreyfusards thought the French military officer must obviously betray his country to Germany because he is jewish. They got proved wrong and then later what did they do? Betray France to Germany!
For me, the highlight of this pathetic thread was Chaim, with his hilarious and well-placed satiric barbs. And then he gets roundly denounced by all the po-faced anti-anti-racists here. Of course this is another area in which Jews excel: humor.
Actually, the Spanish also allowed Jews to stay in Spain who converted, although their entry into certain professions was difficult and they were under constant suspicion of reversion to Judaism. Nonetheless, such notables as St. Teresa of Avila (and in the long run, Franco) were part Jewish.
Also, FWIW, William Cohen is the son of a Jewish father and a non-Jewish mother, and I believe he was raised as a Unitarian, not a Jew.
But when George Sarton put a high-powered lens to the Middle Ages in his monumental Introduction to the History of Science (1927-48), he found that 95 of the 626 known scientists working everywhere in the world from 1150 to 1300 were Jews—15 percent of the total, far out of proportion to the Jewish population.
This is a point that requires further investigation. It is interesting, but one obvious problem is that Jews were some of the few highly literate people during the era. Isaac Newton's ancestors, by contrast, were likely illiterate peasants. If part of the problem is lack of documentation as Murray indicates, Jews were in a far better position to document their accomplishments than other people would have been. I am also curious as to how broadly the term "science" is being defined for this purpose. This isn't the 1700s or 1800s we are talking about here. Science didn't exist as we might define it today. As an example, I've heard about Jewish mathematicians from the early Middle Ages. Upon investigating their original accomplishments, If find there are few to speak of. They were mathematicians by the mere fact that they would have been some of the few numerate people around capable of understanding Greek and Arab mathematics.
An extract from the Jewish Encyclopedia:
The thirteenth century was especially rich in mathematical productions. The writings of the Greek and Arabian mathematicians were translated into Hebrew and commented upon. Judah ben Samuel Cohen of Toledo (1238), in his encyclopedia—written originally in Arabic and translated by himself into Hebrew under the title "Midrash ha-Hokmah"—gives extracts from the "Elements" of Euclid. In 1278 Euclid's entire work was translated from the Arabic, probably by Moses ibn Tibbon. Another translation, entitled "Yesodot," or "Shorashim," and including Hypsicle's books, is supposed to have been made by Jacob ben Machir. Commentaries upon it by Arabian mathematicians, such as Al-Farabi and Ibn Haitham, were also rendered into Hebrew, probably by Kalonymus ben Kolonymus, who, according to the commentary of Simplicius, had translated Book xiv. and Ibn Haitham's commentary on the introduction to Book x. Among the other commentaries on the "Elements" still extant in manuscript in various European libraries are those by a pupil of Jacob ben Machir; by Abba Mari on the introduction to Book i.; by Levi ben Gershon on the propositions of Books i., iii., iv., and v.; by Abraham ben Solomon Yarhi; and, according to Joseph Delmedigo, by Elijah Mizrahi. Euclid's "Data" was rendered into Hebrew, from the Arabic version of Hunain ibn Ishah, by Jacob ben Machir, under the title "Sefer ha-Mattanah." Three new translations were made between 1775 and 1875. Euclid's works were published first by Abraham ben Joseph Minz, with annotations by Meïr of Fürth, under the title "Reshit Limmudim hu Sefer Ihlides" (Berlin, 1795). Five years later a new translation of the first six books of the "Elements" was published by Baruch Schick (The Hague, 1780). In 1875 a new translation of Books xi. and xii. was published at Jitomir.
As you can see, the "mathematical productions" were little more than translations and commentary upon Euclid and other Greek and Arab mathematicians. The fact that Jews were intermediaries between the Arab world and Europe would have placed them in a highly advantageous position to become "mathematicians" and "scientists" by the rather broad definition of the term in the early Middle Ages. As everyone here probably knows, it is Sephardic Jews, who's IQs are no higher than Europeans generally, who really stand out during the period referred to by Murray. Ashkenazic Jews appear to have been intellectually unimportant until centuries later. The fact that you need a "high-powered lens" to see the accomplishments of these Jews suggests that they weren't exactly the most exciting or important contributions.
It is highly likely that Einstien stole the cruicial ideas of special relativity from Henri Poincare. The Irish physcist Fitzgerald also made a very important contribution.
A Norwegian physcist, David Hilbert and Einstien were all working on General Relativity at the same time. The Norwegian came up with sonething first. He was very close, but was missing a key idea to make the whole thing work.
David Hilbert and Einstien were work independently on General Relativity. Hilbert suggested that both he and Einstein work on General Relativity together. Einstein agreed. Einstien spent a week at Hilbert's home.
Both Einstein and Hilbert came up with the correct covariant form of General Relativity. Einstein published the correct form of General Relativity before Hilbert by a week or two.
There is a lingering question about whether Einstien used Hilbert's work and failed to give credit.
Honest General relativity textbooks give David Hilbert the credit he is due by refering to the Einstein-Hilbert action(from which the corrrect form of the General Relatavity equations are derived)
Miles
Legal asian immigrants and their obnoxiuous "american" born gene-line are undermining any possibility of having policies to develope NATIVE BORN WHITE CHRISTIAN ENGINEERING,PROGRAMMING TALENT.
The prescence of millions of legal asian immigrantr and their gene-line is resulting in the destruction of the thousands of years of collective engineering experinece that resides in the brains of NATIVE BORN WHITE CHRISTIAN AMERICA. This makes their prescence in OUR AMERICA genocidal.
Silicon Valley and the California State University system is a scarce resource paid for and built by NATIVE BORN CHRISTIAN AMERICANS. This scarce resource does not belong to China, India and Pakistan.
The English legal immigrant twerp Peter Brimelow will never discuss this in any depth on his website vdare.com. I despise Brimelow.
Jupiter
For me, the highlight of this pathetic thread was Chaim, with his hilarious and well-placed satiric barbs. And then he gets roundly denounced by all the po-faced anti-anti-racists here. Of course this is another area in which Jews excel: humor.
Is he kidding, Mamba? I'm tempted to believe so at times, but I honestly can't tell.
Tommy, I agree that the accomplishments of Jewish sages in the medieval Muslim world do not really merit the label of genius. Maimonides is the only one of them who is generally known outside of the Jewish circles, and even he isn't really in the league of gentile greats of the period such as Avicenna and Aquinas.
The literacy of the Jews explains their relative prominence in the illiterate medieval society better than any supposed higher intelligence.
The genius of the Jews is the genius of the Ashkenazim in the last couple of hundred of years. There are some Sephardic geniuses like Spinoza and Ricardo but not more than you'd expect from a people with the same average IQ as European Christians.
Not only is Einstein's contribution to the theory of relativity overrated, so is the theory itself. Once the realisation that the speed of light is non-infinite is combined with Lobachevskian non-Euclidian geometry, the theory becomes obvious. It was just waiting to be formally enunciated.
As for the story of how the pacific, wooly-haired Jew, Einstein, attained secular sainthood, that merits a study all of its own.
Anon
Just because the mathematics of special relativity is trivial-ninth grade algebra-it doesn't follow that special relativity is trivial physics. Special and General relativity are both deep conceptual breakthroughs.
Deep physics is not about cranking out a 300 page tensor calculation.
The concepts are fundamental and prior.
Einstien did make original contributions to physics:explantion of Browniand motion,photoelecetric effect and Bose einstein condensates. Give credit where credit is due.
Einstien was a Jew with a filthy mind. But he was not unsympathetic to the plight of the Palestinans. And I'm sure as hell glad he wrote that letter to Rosevelt.
No doubt, we are going to learn a lot of nasty things about Einstien when the Einstein documents are fully revealed.
Without the mathematics of German Christian Mathematician Bernhard Reimann, Einstien would never have been ever to mathematically formualte General Relativity.
Euro-Christian scientists an mathematicians have made enormous contributions. Wthout them the human speices would be several hundreds years behind whert it scientifically and technologically.
And this brings me to a vry important observational:vdare.com has been way to easy and tolerant of the predatory asian legal immigrants and their obnoxious and spoiled "american" born gene-line. The legal immigrant asian community is using its enormous resources to destroy thousands of years of collective NATIVE BORN WHITE CHRISTIAN engineering experience and prevent te emergence of poplicies targetd at developing NATIVE BORN WHITE CHRISTIAN ENGINEERING TALENT.
Vdare.com rants and rants about illegal hispanic aliens. This is a serious problem. But Legal asian immigrants are as much of a threat to the contiuned existence of EURO-CHRISTIAN AMERICAN AS ILLEGAL SPIC ALIENS.
I would love to see all the secret emails that the twerpy English legal immigrant Peter Brimelow-now happily married to his Irish child bride-recieves from his legal immigrant asian fans.
Both Henri Poincare and David hilbert were born to Christian parents.
Jupiter
100! :P
Ashkenazic Jews appear to have been intellectually unimportant until centuries later.
But maybe there weren't many Askenazim until recent centuries, if Askenazim are the offspring of Shepardic women married to northern European men.
The white racist/anti-Jews have a bigger problem than Jews in this country: Evangelical Christians. Evangelicals, of whom there are probably at least 50 million, tend to be pro-Jew and pro-immigrant, and also accepting of Christians of other races. There are plenty more Evangelicals than there are white racists, and they will be difficult to convert to an anti-immigration, anti-Jew position.
anonymous at 4/03/2007 9:31 AM,
The US outside of the southwest is just starting to really experience what California already has. If we can hold off on amnesty for 10 years I think an immigration (legal and illegal) pause may be on the table, even for those evangelical christians you speak of. Of course if we give amnesty and create vast numbers of new ethnocentric citizens, they will of course make it that much harder.
Adolf Hitler--call your office!
"Before becoming the founder of modern Zionism, Theodore Herzl was a model assimilated, secular Jew. Like most post-emancipation Jews, he thrived in late 19th Century Europe as a European -- he didn't think his Jewish background was that relevant anymore. What changed his mind was the Dreyfus Affair.
When Jupiter-like French Catholics falsely accused another assimilated Jew -- Alfred Dreyfus, an artillery captain in the French army -- of treason, Herzel realized that Jews would never be accepted as Frenchmen, or Germans, etc., no matter how assimilated they became."
-------------------------------------
"Lemme guess, this is supposed to be an argument for "diversity"? It isn't. It's an argument for separatism (or at least self-determination vis-a-vis separatism)."
---------------------------------------
You really don't understand the significance of that history, Svigor? You hate Jews for having an "ethno-state" in Israel and because most of them feel safer living in a multi-ethnic society in America; and yet it was folks like you and Jupiter in Europe who threatened, branded, and ostracized Jews such as Herzel into Zionism. All Dreyfus wanted to do was serve his country (France) as a military officer. All Herzel had wanted to do was be a journalist in Vienna. If the French took a generation or so off from hating Jews, Herzel's grand children would have been Christians.
Ah, no sense trying to explain history to you. You go on hating Jews (or harboring an "animus" toward them, if you prefer). I'm sure good things will come of it.
Jupiter,
You couldn't be Stupider. What the fuck is a Euro-American? You are really just talking about the subset of white people who can't hack it in a capitalist meritocracy.
Why should successful white people think their interests are aligned with yours? They are in favor of lower taxes and tariffs, you are in favor of more. You have nothing in common but your skin color, and that's not enough anymore. Particularly as more successful whites are mating with Asians and are desperate to add more smart colored people to their college campuses.
You should start learning Spanish Jupiter, so you can talk to your new boss. You don't have the chops to work for me.
The white racist/anti-Jews have a bigger problem than Jews in this country: Evangelical Christians. Evangelicals, of whom there are probably at least 50 million, tend to be pro-Jew and pro-immigrant, and also accepting of Christians of other races.
How about an either bigger segment of the population, viz., women? I don't really follow white nationalism, for want of a better expression, but the only female voices I can think of, on that front, are April Gaede and Mussolini's granddaughter.
Feminine values, which we value so much in the right circumstances, are, alas, highly susceptible to liberal and anti-racist agendas.
So it's come to this: calling Muslims "Turds." I think this discussion has jumped the shark.
Irfan's reductionist homo economicus mantra is as tiresome as Jupiter's nuttiness.
Is Jupiter a Muslim Internet troll?
It is a little annoying that Jews keep harping on about supporting Israel, but so many of them prefer not to live there.
I don't beleive in being nice to the conquering armies from china,india,iran,pakistan and mexico.
Being nice to these conquering armies would be real nuttinesss.
Irfan's post was another expression of asian/muslim/pakistatni/jewish supremacism.
Jupiter
Jews have a lot of influence over the media, but they don't control everything .
Have you noticed Sam Zell's latest purchase?
Steve, what do think of Richard Armitage for the next James Bond? No kidding, this is a seriously handsome fella.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=lPdJ9MpbZBo
Steve, you need to stop talking about Jews for the next week so your readership can think of something else. ;)
Jews get it, and tend not to identify as white. They sure as hell don't when there's a downside (I doubt there's a jew alive that suffers from white guilt).
Svigor: Are you serious? You obviously don't know anything about Jews to even suggest that Jews don't experience the "white guilt" thing. You're so far removed from the average Jew, I can't take you seriously (even if you are more articulate than the other "white nationalists" that post here).
For the record, I'm a Jewish American and I have a big American flag proudly waving in front of my house. I've also spent over two decades working at Raytheon as an engineer, contributing more to the defense of America than you and your bigoted buddies.
M. Klein is certainly correct. I should have commented on that absurd remark myself. No doubt many Jewish liberals, like Christian or post-Christian liberals, regard race as constructed rather than real and would play down their whiteness in that sense, but in day-to-day life nearly all Jews in my experience regard themselves as white, with all the "white privilege" on the one hand and "white guilt" on the other that that entails, and are regarded by those around them as white as well.
P.S. Despite the name, I am not Jewish. (Not that it should matter, but I want to forestall paranoid comments.)
"The Bible is obviously a great work, but intellectually the works of, say, certain ancient Greeks are surely superior, yet no one is contending that ancient Greeks had superior IQs."
Well if they are not saying it they surely ought to be. The Greek intellectual acheivement dwarfs anything else the ancient world has to offer. I have no doubt that if those people were alive today they would put every other racial/ethnic group to shame, Ashkenazi jews included.
It is interesting how little comment there is in this thread on on the causes of Ashkenazi intelligence.
Personally I think the argument for it going back as far as the post-Babylonian exile are highly dubious. The thing that needs to be explained is why Ashkenazi intelligence is so much higher than Sephardic intelligence.
The usual estimates of sephardic intelligence put the average at 85, not 100: the same as the average for Palestinians in Israel. In Israel the Sephardi are the ones doing menial, untrained jobs — effectively the blacks of Israel. It is the Ashkenazi who fill the professional positions.
So the explanations for Ashkenazi intelligence ought to come from the period of their Northern European settlement. And it is only in this period that there is any evidence of jewish intellectual superiority.
One further point: John von Neumann claimed to Stan Ulam that almost all of the brilliant jewish mathematical geniuses came ultimately from five or six villages nestled at the foot of the Carpathians in the intersection of Hungary, Russia, and Poland. More needs to be done to look at the inbreeding and incresed fertility of certain sub-groups of Jewish settlers in Europe. Differential fertility rates are just as good at explaining evolution as selection.
I don't get it: Where does the idea that the Hart-Celler Act, which was passed overwhelmingly by Congress, was a Jewish plot come from? (Celler was Jewish but Hart was not; major backers of the legislation like Ted Kennedy and LBJ were certainly not Jewish.)
Svigor — here is an alternative explanation for superior Askenazi intelligence. I offer it up for consideration, as it seems better than Murray's.
A recent study found that one quarter of ashkenazi jews can be traced back to four ancestral couples from the middle ages, which were couplings of a jewish male with a native (probably German) female. Now suppose these four females were chosen for their high intelligence — then the evolutionary success of these four couples in differential fertility terms, combined with a modicum of selection for fit-non-apostate offspring later down the chain, could bring about a sub-population of jews who are of high intellligence and, in appearence terms, virtually indistinguishable from white Europeans.
Sephradic jews are those who did not interbreed with this group, but instead suffered a different kind of luck. And they are quite distinguishable from white Europeans.
In this scenario, luck and differential fertility play a large role. But so does the non-jewish ancestry of the Askenazis.
Some support for this view comes from the fact that mathematical ability is passed down the maternal line, even though it is usually manifested most strongly in the male offspring.
So: Ashkenazi intelligence a remnant of German intelligence in the Middle Ages.
Discuss.
My suggestion above will of course make equal trouble for all kinds of racial views: it suggests that jews are not superior in virtue of being racially pure semites (as many jews seem to think); and it suggests that those anti-semites who think that jews are inferior in virtue of being non white or non-Aryan are also barking up the wrong tree.
Essentially Hitler exterminated a whole lot of semi-Aryans, and the smart ones at that.
On the other hand jews can be relieved of the problem of explaining why they are so different from every other semitic group in the middle east: it is because they are not really the same people after all.
One further point: John von Neumann claimed to Stan Ulam that almost all of the brilliant jewish mathematical geniuses came ultimately from five or six villages nestled at the foot of the Carpathians in the intersection of Hungary, Russia, and Poland.
The Hungarian Jews, in particular, produced a lot of extremely intelligent mathematicians and scientists. Paul Erdos was one of many. Neumann was another, obviously.
Interestingly, while it appears that the hypothesis of a Khazar origin for the Ashkenazic Jews is generally false, I've heard it suggested that if there is any Khazar ancestry in the modern Ashkenazim, given what we know of the fate of Khazar converts to Judaism, it might be most concentrated in Hungary. This is an area that should receive more investigation while there is still an identifiable body of ancestral Hungarian Jews to study.
A recent study found that one quarter of ashkenazi jews can be traced back to four ancestral couples from the middle ages....So: Ashkenazi intelligence a remnant of German intelligence in the Middle Ages.
Two points:
(1) I don't think the high intelligence of the Ashkenazim can be accounted for simply by something that would affect around one quarter of the population. Though perhaps in the presence of other factors it might.
(2) Unless the intelligence of the Ashkenazim was already exceptional, provided the low intelligence of the Sephardim (which, as one commentator has already pointed out, appears to be quite a bit lower than northern Europeans), it would be hard to explain how they came to mate with European women. Women wouldn't ordinarily marry down like that. The only possible explanation I can conceive centers around Jewish involvement in the Slavic slave trade around the time of Charlemagne.
Still, your point is taken about the appearance of Ashkenazic Jews. It is clear that some factor must explain why Ashkenazic Jews are so European looking. The ridiculous hypothesis that was thrown out by one Jewish researcher a few years back claiming that Jews managed to evolve these European traits in response to the European climate while maintaining their Semitic genetic purity is beyond stupid.
Stan Ulam that almost all of the brilliant jewish mathematical geniuses came ultimately from five or six villages nestled at the foot of the Carpathians in the intersection of Hungary, Russia, and Poland.
Wikipedia reports "...in 1921 Budapest, 87.8 percent of the members of the stock exhange and 91 percent of the currency brokers were Jews, many of them ennobled..."
There's a definite link between financial acumen and mathematical ability.
Tommy — thanks for the intelligent response. I agree with your second criticism but I don't think the first is quite right. The claim is that a quarter of modern askenazi are the direct descendents of four mixed marriage couples, but that doesn't rule out the other three quarters having the descendents of those couples in their family tree. The problem, of course, is that genetic testing is sensitive only to the direct male and female line, and is not going to be able to fill in the relations *within* the ancestral tree.
After the initial mixing the jews appear not to have bred out again, to any large extent.
But your other point is certainly valid — and maybe the slave trade explanation is in fact right. It might also explain why this outbreeding all seems to have occurred in the same time period.
Lewis, you say,: Wikipedia reports "...in 1921 Budapest, 87.8 percent of the members of the stock exhange and 91 percent of the currency brokers were Jews, many of them ennobled..."
Von Neumann's family was exactly one of these. His father was ennobled because of his success in banking. It hardly needs saying that John v. N. was a mathematical genius of the first order.
David Hume,
I agree with your second criticism but I don't think the first is quite right. The claim is that a quarter of modern askenazi are the direct descendents of four mixed marriage couples, but that doesn't rule out the other three quarters having the descendents of those couples in their family tree.
Let me put it this way: there would have be forces operating upon a population, such as selective pressure, bottlenecks, or drift, to cause a significant statistical disparity between a population's genetic inheritance as measured by nuclear DNA versus its inheritance as measured by mtDNA and Y-chromosome DNA. Short of such forces, if 75% of mtDNA and Y-chromosome DNA is attributable to Semitic ancestry and 25% to European ancestry (not asserting this as fact; just using it as an example), we would expect the population's nuclear DNA to reflect about that same 75/25 mix also. The Y-chromosome and mitochondrial DNA of any given individual may not reflect the actual composition of their nuclear DNA, but any sufficiently large sample of the entire population should.
If one quarter of Jews have mtDNA indicating European parentage, and if we assume for the sake of argument that 100% of Jewish y-chromosome DNA is Semitic, this would indicate a 12.5% contribution by Europeans to the Ashkenazic gene pool. Even if we also assume that the pre-admixture Ashkenazic Jewish population had a mean IQ of 100, that 12.5% would have to have come from some incredibly smart women to raise the mean IQ of the entire Ashkenazic Jewish population by 0.75 to 1.0 standard deviations. Of course, it is possible various factors could increase the presence of Semitic mtDNA relative to European while not affecting the statistical makeup of nuclear DNA. But that is exactly what I meant in my last post by "other factors."
And actually, nuclear DNA can be studied and probably will have to be studied if we ever expect to definitively answer these sort of questions. (You can trace the descent of various populations partially through thalassemia genes for example.) Unfortunately, the sort of broad-based nuclear DNA studies needed are generally more tedious and expensive than the standard mtDNA/Y-DNA tests and their results are often less clear cut. The good news is that genetic testing will surely improve in both capability and cost and our quest for medical information about genes will push us toward studying nuclear DNA distributions more and more.
Oops, the first two paragraphs were supposed to be in italics, since they are a quote from an earlier comment.
The ideas of Shinzo Abe and David Hume above seem to be worth investigating.
Namely, Ashkenazi Jewish intellect comes from marriage to smart non-Jewish women soon after arriving in northern Europe (the "founder event"), coupled with intellectual sharpening due to the occupational niches they came to dominate.
What would be the next step to investigate this theory? (in genetics, history, etc)
I'm also interested in the question of Ashkenazi IQ in Israel, which appears to be 103, not the 110+ as it is in the Diaspora. Does living in a "host" society provide a better environment for intelligence? Even the sharpest knife can't carve it's own handle.
To the posters who claimed that Sephardic Jews are like the "blacks" of Israel: Bear in mind that Israel's current president (born in Iran) is Sephardic. Also, Israel's former foreign minister, Silvan Shalom is Sephardic (born in Morocco, I think). I'm no expert on Israeli politics, so if these are the only two names I can think of off the top of my head, I would guess there are more.
As David Hume has indicated, the studies suggest that most of the admixture occurred during a limited period of time. I don't know that the phenomenon explains much in the way of Jewish intelligence, but it is an interesting subject in its own right.
Timing is a critical matter in determining what exactly may have happened. The idea that full-time Jewish usurers were breeding with non-Jews doesn't strike me as likely. It would have occurred too late in the game. The rise of usury as the major economic activity of Jews was correlated with the rise of anti-Jewish legislation generally and the isolation of Jews from surrounding populations. This would not have been the optimal environment for intermarriage between Jews and non-Jews. In fact, by the time the practice of full-time usury really took off such intermarriage was likely prohibited almost everywhere, as was conversion to or proselytizing on behalf of Judaism, and the ownership of Christian slaves.
This means it probably happened before usury became the Jews main employment. I would place my money (no pun intended) on that earlier period when Jews were involved in trade, including the slave trade. Many a medieval Jewish source holds Charlemagne in high regard and not without reason. He was quite good to the Jews even if he wasn't so nice to the Slavs.
Another place to look for non-Jewish contribution to the Ashkenazic gene pool might be in the early Byzantine Empire. There were a large number of converts to Judaism here, back when Jews still proselytized to some extent. Most of these converts are thought to have abandoned Judaism for Christianity later when the environment grew more hostile to non-Christians. It is unclear how much of a role the Byzantine Jews played in the formation of the Ashkenazim, but some studies point to some contribution, even if less significant than that of Jews originating further west.
Finally, there is the issue of very early Jewish settlements in Germany. There was a Jewish community in Cologne as early as the 300s, before the Roman Empire went entirely kaput. Unfortunately, there is very little information about these early settlements. From what I can recall reading previously, the significance of these communities in the founding of the Ashkenazim appears doubtful due to later events in the region which would have driven Jews out. Still, one can easily imagine a frontier region like southern Germany, during the later Roman Empire, when Jews were both very free, very accepting of converts, and not especially religious, as an ideal environment for intermarriage.
Its been some time since I've looked into this matter, I don't have any sources at hand, and I may be a little foggy on the some of the facts, so I apologize for any errors.
Jupiter,
Can you give us a quick summary of your family history? And please don't just say that you are "EURO-CHRISTIAN". I am talking about when your ancestors came to what is now the U.S., from where, etc. It will help me put your views in the proper context.
"Fundieism has prospered because Jews have allowed it free run. Fundie Xtian broadcast stations get licensed:who controls the licensure? It wouldn't happen without their OK."
This may the most paranoid statement yet. For what it's worth, here is a complete list of all FCC commissioners past and present. http://www.fcc.gov/commissioners/commish-list.html
Now considering that politics and government is another field in which Jews are more common than in the general population, I expected there would be at least SOME Jewish members in the FCC's long history, but based on surname alone (and therefore not accounting for possible Jewish mothers), a current member, Jonathan Adelstein, seems to be the only one! So sorry, fred phirmphoot, try again.
In other matters: I believe Shimon Peres is also Sephardic.
As late as the nineteenth century non-Jews often considered Sephardic Jews the more sophisticated and cultivated of the two branches; I wonder what changed.
yes anon
On my fathers side of the family, Prussian-German Catholic-late 1830's. The German married an Irish Catholic woman. After that,all the marriages on my fathers side were to Irish Catholics.
Mothers side:100 percent Irish Catholic, arrival time civil war era.
Current gene-line-seven of us-breeding mostly with Italians and Germans. Two married to Germans. Possible Jewish ancestry in the distant past for one of the brother-in-laws of German descent(his father's side)
Jupiter
"As late as the nineteenth century non-Jews often considered Sephardic Jews the more sophisticated and cultivated of the two branches; I wonder what changed."
From my experience, as an American Ashkenazi Jew, I have never heard any other Ashkenazis make a disparaging remark about Sephardics. Orthodox Ashkenazis still revere and study the works of Sephardic Jews such as Maimonides. To the extent that Sephardics come up in conversation today, it's usually in the context of their less-restrictive passover dietary rules. Today in Israel, the chief Sephardic rabbi is accorded the same status and respect of the chief Ashkenazi rabbi.
Among American Jews, most of whom are Ashkenazi, there is a growing trend of having their Bar-Mitzvah ceremonies in the Caribbean, at Sephardic synagogues where the ceremony is conducted according to Sephardic rites. I have never heard an Ashkenazi Jew make an invidious comparisons to Sephardics based on intelligence; come to think of it, I've never heard the subject of IQ come up in Jewish gatherings either. You folks seem far more obsessed with it than we are. We are too busy trying to think up ways to bring more Mexicans in the country.
Anonymous 1,
To the posters who claimed that Sephardic Jews are like the "blacks" of Israel: Bear in mind that Israel's current president (born in Iran) is Sephardic. Also, Israel's former foreign minister, Silvan Shalom is Sephardic (born in Morocco, I think). I'm no expert on Israeli politics, so if these are the only two names I can think of off the top of my head, I would guess there are more.
Overlap fallacy. Some Sephardic Jews are as successful as Ashkenazic Jews, therefore Sephardic Jews are generally as successful as Ashkenazic Jews. There is Condi, Powell, and Oprah, therefore blacks must be as politically and economically successful as whites.
Anonymous 2,
From my experience, as an American Ashkenazi Jew, I have never heard any other Ashkenazis make a disparaging remark about Sephardics. Orthodox Ashkenazis still revere and study the works of Sephardic Jews such as Maimonides.
OK, but you are an American Jew. Sephardic Jews are a small percentage of American Jewry. It is easy to be philosophical about people with whom you have little daily interaction and among whom any experience you are likely to have will be in a formal, glorified setting like in a religious service. Oh! I love those Jamaicans! They make such great music. Trenchtown must be a great place to live.
Personally, I don't think Sephardic Jews are very comparable to blacks (maybe they might be better called the "Hispanics" of the Jewish community). Still, I've often read stories where an Ashkenazi and a Sephardi will get married in Israel. The reaction of the relatives of the Ashkenazi partner, while generally approving of the marriage, will frequently fall along these lines:
This is like marrying into an entirely different culture. How exciting! Oh no! We aren't prejudiced like some others.
They talk about the Sephardi bride or groom as though they were about to adopt a member of some exotic tribe from New Guinea into the family.
Roughly, how many Falasha-Ashkenazi weddings are there a year in Israel?
IQ did not made us happy. Herzl's vision was to make us like other peoples. A normal people. Tell me where to give back 15 IQ points so you will let us live in peace.
Roughly, how many Falasha-Ashkenazi weddings are there a year in Israel?
If that is a serious question it would likely be somewhere between 0.0000% and 0.0001% of all marriages in Israel. The Ashkenazim are notoriously uninterested in marriage to "chocolate Jews."
Tommy:
"The Ashkenazim are notoriously uninterested in marriage to "chocolate Jews."
Is this just you speculating, or saying this based on a source? I wouldn't be surprised if there wasn't much intermarriage between Falashas and Askenazis, but I would venture this would be due to the cultural and educational distance between the two groups, not because the Falashas are "chocolate". Falashas were essentially a pre-modern people before they were brought to Israel: some even tried to light fires inside the cargo planes that flew them from Africa to their new home.
I didn't grow up among any Falashas, but where I grew up, marriages between Ashkenazi Jews and (converted) black Jews weren't unheard of or discouraged. The main issue was whether or not the mate was Jewish, not what their race was.
As an example, I went to Hebrew school with a boy whose mother was an African American who converted to Judaism when she met the boy's father, a red-haired Ashkenazi Jew. Mother, father, and son were warmly accepted in the community. I forget what the Ashkenazi father did (he was on the town council, but that wasn't a full-time job), but his "chocolate" wife was a professor of English who went to medical school in her 40's and became a gerontologist. Their son went to Princeton.
By the way, I went to a Passover service last night -- held by an orthodox Jewish organization that tries to get "lapsed" Jews to become more observant. Not my sort of thing, but my mother wanted to me to go with her as she had gone with my late father last year. No blacks among the small group, but there were at least two non-Jews there: my WASP girlfriend and a Jewish police chief's Latino wife. Both were treated with the same warmth and hospitality as everyone else.
Consider that, among many Poles & Ukrainians, Jews were hated because they were considered stupid. The Ukrainian/Polish equivalent of the phrase "nigger-rigged" is "Jew-rigged" -- to describe something put together in a stupid, half-assed way.
Must admit, I'd never heard this. I assumed the main reason for animus was the Jews' role as economic middlemen.
See:
http://www.hoover.org/publications/digest/2931421.html
Uhm,me again! :) I'd advise you to check out Steves report on Harvards Andrei Shleifer (Sunday,Oct15 2006)for some interesting info. He had been adjudged guilty of fraud w/regard to his advisory role in Russia,but was defended by his Harvard buddies--one of whom compared his case to the Protocols of the Elders of Zion! :0 (At least they didnt mention Dreyfus)
A recent study found that one quarter of ashkenazi jews can be traced back to four ancestral couples from the middle ages....So: Ashkenazi intelligence a remnant of German intelligence in the Middle Ages.
One wonders if some Jewish subgroups accelerated the microevolution of certain traits by the practice of cousin marriage.
... And Jewish maternal descent being more important than one's patrimony -- what's the meaning of that?
Today in Israel, the chief Sephardic rabbi is accorded the same status and respect of the chief Ashkenazi rabbi.
That's the changing demographics of Israel. Looking at photos of Israeli soldiers involved in last summer's short war on the northern border, I have noticed that a several of the Israelites’ elite units looked Ethiopian, not just "Sephardic."
Sorry, change ".... a several of the Israelites’ elite units looked Ethiopian, not just "Sephardic" to "several men of the Israelites' elite units ..."
Btw, the new conventional wisdom from War Nerd and that ilk is that the Israeli military underperformed against the Hizb Allah. But the Israelis must have done something right, 'cuz things have been quiet there since.
"Regarding Ashkenazim-Sephardic relations, I once asked a Sephardic friend of mine what the difference is between Ashkenazi Jews and Sephardic Jews. He said, "We got the looks and they got the brains."
An ex-girlfriend of mine was half-Sephardic, half-Ashkenazi, and pretty hot: light brown hair, green eyes, and olive skin. Great cans too. Her father's side of the family came from Holland, where they settled after the Inquisition. Her mother was a blue-eyed blond Jew from Russia, but she didn't look much like her mother. Sorry to reminisce. You can all get back to hating now.
"Btw, the new conventional wisdom from War Nerd and that ilk is that the Israeli military underperformed against the Hizb Allah."
That's not just the conventional wisdom from War Nerd; that's the conventional wisdom in Israel. Good news for Israel in the long run, to get a reality check when relatively little was at stake. They won't make the same mistakes again.
Poor steve, pounding out well thought articles to generate some ad sense dollars when all he has to do is clip a little from the Forward about 'the Jews" and 100 willing readers write his content for him...and, much as I like Steve's work this has been most entertaining!
Svigor,
You asked why Jews couldn't have have developed their own light hair and eye color genes over the course of two millennia in Europe:
Do you think that without intermarriage blacks could develop pale skin in under 2,000 years (or even 1,000 years; presumably the high number of blond German Jews didn't suddenly appear in 1983 for example)? Do you think white South Africans could become black in under 2,000 years without mating with the natives? Of course not. There isn't enough time and the pressures that originally selected these traits aren't going to be powerful in a modern context. They developed back during the hunter-gatherer days when populations were much smaller, more isolated, more prone to inbreeding, population bottlenecks, and drift, and far more subject to the natural environment. The primitive selective forces that resulted in a high prevalence of light hair and eye color in northern Europeans were not likely operating during the Middle Ages for any group; much less so for one that was living like the lesser nobility. No, pressure on the Ashkenazim came in the form of intellectual challenges rather than environmental ones.
Dave
Is this just you speculating, or saying this based on a source? I wouldn't be surprised if there wasn't much intermarriage between Falashas and Askenazis,
I'm guessing. Everything I've read on the Falasha population suggests they are pretty socially isolated from white Jews. I wouldn't be surprised if intermarriage between Ashkenazic Jews and blacks is more common in the United States than in Israel.
but I would venture this would be due to the cultural and educational distance between the two groups, not because the Falashas are "chocolate".
I'm kidding. Sorry for the Ray Nagin/Easter season/Chocolate Jesus reference. ;-)
"my IQ is around 240
No, it isn't.
That is more than nine standard deviations above 100.
tommy,
there is something in what svigor says about peoples appearance under selection pressure. for instance, lapps are close genetically to north africans, but they look rather like other scandinavians. Even white and black americans have changed slightly since arriving in America. In europe, I can often spot an american - not just because of the weight, but something in the jaw-line too.
Having said that, Ashkenazi certainly had some genetic input from Euros.
"my IQ is around 240"
No, it isn't.
He's calling me a liar. The persecution's already begun.
ok, but can they play basketball?
lewis,
there is something in what svigor says about peoples appearance under selection pressure. for instance, lapps are close genetically to north africans, but they look rather like other scandinavians.
Yeah, but they probably share an underlying genetic base that is more ancient than most other Europeans. They've both simply been affected less by the exact same groups of subsequent incursions and population expansions in Europe. This doesn't mean they haven't interbred with surrounding groups over the centuries. Furthermore, both groups undoubtedly came to look as they do much longer than 2,000 years ago and under selective pressures far more severe than those that exist in our day or existed during the Middle Ages. You need only read Tacticus' decscription of the Finni (Finns) in his Germania to get an idea of the harsh life the Uralic peoples were leading at the time Roman explorers encountered them.
North Africans ain't turning into Lapps in two millennia. You can try it. It ain't happening. ;-)
And Jewish maternal descent being more important than one's patrimony -- what's the meaning of that?
In what sense? In the evolutionary psychological sense it's obviously the way to go - females are the cradle of any group and are a more precious resource than males.
If emphasizing matrilineal descent over patrimony has evolutionary advantages. why haven't European gentiles, East Asians, etc., practiced it? Cuz they're stupider?
I really don't get this matrilineal descent business ... unless the tribe wished to have more tribesfolk and the tribe's sons had difficulty mating with ausslander girls, for some pre-modern historical reason.
Also, paternity's far more certain.
Changing "paternity" to 'parentage," you somewhat obtusely overlook the great importance men in almost all traditional European or Middle Eastern or East Asian cultures assign to knowing they really are the father of their children. .... OK, maybe anxiety about who's the daddy is obsolete in po-mo welfare societies.
Or maybe not. Who ya think is the father of Anna Nicole's baby? Millions of TV watchers want to know.
...
Things seem to have been relatively quiet along the Israel-Lebabnon border since last summer. Why? My hunch is, the latter day Israelites had more more military success last summer than they're given credit for -- military success in the air, not on the ground.
Maybe and perhaps a bombing campaign can work if the bombing is sufficiently accurate, concentrated, and ruthless.
Somebody's about to say, "But WWII showed that bombing civilain areas only stiffens civilian morale." My reply is, maybe and perhaps that is wartime British and German propaganda that subsequent generations of sob sister historians have swallowed.
Iraq's different, because the population is more dispersed and the US isn't as desperate and therefore ruthless as Israel has had to be.
Tommy is correct: the only way to get the population of Ashkenazi jews resembling Northern European whites is by interbreeding. And it is the only way to explain the difference between Ashekenazis and Sephardics.. Which raises the question: why can't this interbreeding also be responsible for the intelligence difference. Well, it certainly can't by itself, but maybe in combination with selection pressures of the already mentioned kind.
One thing I find quite striking is the LACK of any contribution to Greek science when it was at its height. The jews were right next door at the time and yet they failed to make any discernible contribution. In fact, during the first century bce there were Greek cities in Judea (there was one right next to Nazareth) — so they were definitely cheek to jowl. One hypothesis — against Murray — is that they just weren't that smart at the time.
Personally I think that that is compelling evidence for just this conclusion. Askenazi intelligence is an artefact of the last two thousand years.
There's no more domesticated species than humans (though we could quibble about dogs).
We aren't talking about domestication. We are talking about adaptation to the environment. The "domestication" of human beings leads to less adaptation to the environment rather than more.
Look at American blacks; from a relatively low amount of European admixture, American blacks are now roughly 20% European. This is probably due more to sexual selection than miscegenation.
I seriously doubt it. One historical period people don't often think to investigate miscegenation is that period between the transition of indentured servitude and slavery. I remember looking at some historical records from early Virginia and being struck by how common miscegenation between indentured servants and slaves was. I also think because you wouldn't take much interest in black women, you may be inclined to think it couldn't be that common. The dynamics of interbreeding in the south were obviously very different than they are today. We are talking about white men engaging in clandestine sexual activity with enslaved black women rather than intermarriage between what is most often black men and white women today.
Probably not, but given a bit of admixture and sexual selection..
No. Given a significant amount of admixture and the serious sort of selection we find in primitive hunter-gatherer societies.
.
Ah, but you're assuming superficial differences are superficial differences are superficial differences, when they aren't; jews stand to gain a lot by blending in superficially with their hosts.
I think you are dreaming if you believe there could have been a conscious effort on the part of Jews to obtain blond hair and blue eyes for the future benefit of the Jewish people and that, as a result, they developed a program to breed for such traits. (Complete apparently with a reasonable understanding of Mendelian inheritance many centuries before Mendel.)
What would happen to SSA skin color if suddenly albinism conferred a huge advantage? In the right circumstances, an entire population could change in one generation. Not evolution, but selection
No, an entire population could not change in one generation. A mutation takes many generations to spread even if it does manage to propagate in a population. That isn't even a guarantee: many positive mutations are lost simply by chance within one or more generations. Clearly, blond hair and blue eyes are not such dramatic advantages that they have even managed to become predominant among the Lapps. Outside of very primitive conditions, where selection is at its most intense in regard to physical traits, I doubt blond hair and blue eyes could have made substantial inroads.
I think one thing worth considering is that the population that is probably most comparable physically to Jews after their dispersal by the Romans would be the Lebanese. Many Lebanese are not that dark.
One thing I find quite striking is the LACK of any contribution to Greek science when it was at its height.
Each generation is standing on the shoulders of giants (though not sure whose shoulders the Greeks were on... Persians?)
The Jews benefited from helenization in subsequent generations. It brought them out of their religious shell. The Romans benefited. And the Arab and Euros. All these people let Greek roots feed their own fruitful learning.
Askenazi intelligence is an artefact of the last two thousand years.
Sailer mentioned the changing shape of european skulls over the last 650 years. I wonder if studying Ashkenazi skulls of the last 1000 or so years would be instructive.
"I really don't get this matrilineal descent business..."
Not very complicated: before DNA tests, one could be a lot more sure of who someone's mother was than who their father was.
"One thing I find quite striking is the LACK of any contribution to Greek science when it was at its height."
Jews weren't interested in science qua science when Greece was ascendant, though I don't know if this is evidence of lower intelligence. Jews were up-to-speed with the technology of the day: they were able to make comparable weapons and armor, the occasional grandiose piece of stone architecture (the Second Temple), calendars, etc. Their values were different from the Greeks though: the Greeks focussed on the physical and were big on going to the gym; the Jews focussed on the divine and preferred prayer and religious study. Alexander the Great respected this difference, which is why he allowed the Jews of Judea to maintain their culture, and insisted on translating the bible into Greek.
Ironically, it wasn't until after Greek civilization fell that Jewish scholars became interested in Greek science and philosophy.
In fact, Jews, as a people, are smart, in my experience. And they're proud of it (especially the dumb ones). Wake up a Jew in the middle of the night and he can rattle off the Jewish Nobel Prize winners in alphabetical order. Believe me, I've been a Jew for 59 years, and I know what I'm talking about.
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-chafets3apr03,0,1191561.story?coll=la-home-commentary
Since the German government relaxed immigration laws for Jews following reunification in 1990, tens of thousands of Jewish migrants have come here, mostly from the former Soviet Union. According to the Central Council of Jews in Germany, an estimated 250,000 Jews now live in the country, with some 110,000 of them registered religious community members.
Before 1990, there were only 23,000 Jewish community members in Germany, according to the Central Council.
"In 2005, more Jewish immigrants came to Germany than to Israel," said Stephan Kramer, the general secretary of the Central Council. "Without immigration, most of the Jewish communities would not exist anymore," he said, adding that about 200,000 Jews left the former Soviet Union for Germany after the fall of communism in 1989.
Cosmopolitan, affordable Berlin in particular has become a magnet, home to several thousand young Israeli expatriates and hundreds of American Jews, prompting talk of a "Jewish renaissance" in a place where famous Jews like Albert Einstein and artist Max Liebermann once lived.
http://tinyurl.com/2jnuwa
It would appear one aspect of my plan for solving the Middle East's Judenproblem is already coming to pass.
Um, Svigor, don't you think the 50% or so intermarriage rate among secular Jews sort of gives the lie to this whole ethnic cohesion thing holding up in the present day? I grew up in Manhattan, and the half-Jewish kids didn't stay home on the Jewish holidays...
Anonymous said: "Jews weren't interested in science qua science when Greece was ascendant, though I don't know if this is evidence of lower intelligence. Jews were up-to-speed with the technology of the day: they were able to make comparable weapons and armor, the occasional grandiose piece of stone architecture (the Second Temple), calendars, etc. Their values were different from the Greeks though: the Greeks focussed on the physical and were big on going to the gym; the Jews focussed on the divine and preferred prayer and religious study. Alexander the Great respected this difference, which is why he allowed the Jews of Judea to maintain their culture, and insisted on translating the bible into Greek."
The point about the jews being up on technology may be true, but doesn't really explain what needs explaining. Technology is and was something that could be sold between cultures. Once the technology exists then a country could simply buy it in — they weren't all reinventing the same things.
But if the jews were as brilliant then as they are now in mathematics, you couldn't have stopped them from contributing to Greek mathematics if you tried. And, as I said, they were right next door — in fact over on the next hill by the first century bce. So there would have been ample time and opportunity for contact. But as far as Greek history tells us, the jews were simply intellectual non-entities at the time.
The only conclusion I can draw is that what *seems* to be the case *was* the case. Jewish ability developed later, and in certain sub-populations and not others. These changes in intelligence are accompanied by the *Eurofication* (to coin an ugly term) of the appearance, to give us the Ashkenazim as they currently are. I think that only better and more extensive genetic testing is going to answer this riddle.
Murray's solution I discount as simply not in conformity with the evidence.
rouse said: "Askenazi intelligence is an artefact of the last two thousand years." (quote from david Hume)
Sailer mentioned the changing shape of european skulls over the last 650 years. I wonder if studying Ashkenazi skulls of the last 1000 or so years would be instructive.
It would be interesting but the results are hard to interpret. (Has the intelligence of the human population fallen with the diminished brain capacity — hard to believe that it hasn't when you look around.)
"if the jews were as brilliant then as they are now in mathematics, you couldn't have stopped them from contributing to Greek mathematics if you tried. And, as I said, they were right next door — in fact over on the next hill by the first century bce."
By this logic, you would expect that a brilliant Palestinian mathematician would contribute to Israeli mathematics -- after all the Jews are on the next hill. I'm sure there is at least one brilliant Palestinian mathematician (Palestinians do dominate the professional class in the Arab world), but I would not be surprised if he didn't collaborate with his Israeli neighbors: after all, they are separated by language, politics and feelings of resentment -- just as the ancient Jews and the Greeks in their settlements were.
Frankly, I don't think we can say much at this point about the relative intelligence of ancient Jews and Greeks as groups, beyond that both groups were clearly more advanced than anyone in, say, Western Europe at that time. Both had cutting-edge technology and written languages when few nations did. The Greeks had a few spectacularly influential geniuses: Archimedes and Aristotle, chief among them. I don't know if this tells us anything about average Greek intelligence back then. It's possible that a Greek just as intelligent as Aristotle was born a thousand years later, but didn't have the window of opportunity to express that genious.
"Frankly, I don't think we can say much at this point about the relative intelligence of ancient Jews and Greeks as groups, beyond that both groups were clearly more advanced than anyone in, say, Western Europe at that time. Both had cutting-edge technology and written languages when few nations did. The Greeks had a few spectacularly influential geniuses: Archimedes and Aristotle, chief among them. I don't know if this tells us anything about average Greek intelligence back then. It's possible that a Greek just as intelligent as Aristotle was born a thousand years later, but didn't have the window of opportunity to express that genius."
I must disagree. One way to estimate the average intelligence of a population is to look at the number of geniuses they produce. And the Greeks produced *many*, of whom Aristotle and Archimedes were simply their very brightest stars, and the Jews in the same period none that we know of.
Their *might* be an alternative explanation of jewish underperformance in this period, but there will be similar explanations for the underperformance of other groups too, like the Syrians, the Phoenicians or the Romans. These explanations tend to wash one another out. The obvious explanation is simply a lower IQ.
The Palestinians underperform because their average IQ is lower, much lower, than the Israeli average. A Palestinian mathematical genius, *could* exist — but there is no reason to think that one actually does exist simply because one could.
Gentlemen — we have hit the 200 replies mark!
The ancient Greeks (at least some of them anyway) reportedly employed eugenics. They encouraged the successful in the political, intellectual, and military spheres to have more children.
I don't agree with the whole Mensa/highly-intelligent-Europeans-are-exceptionally-neurotic bit. Mensa has many Jewish members and Mensa tends to attract the socially awkward who need to demonstrate just how smart they really are.
This thread reminds me of something I love about America: far more often than not, people who get it get rich here.
Getting it isn't entirely dependent on IQ: there are plenty of folks with average or slightly better intelligence doing well. It's also not about nepotism, in most cases. Despite a few prominent examples we can all think of, there is a lot less of that in this country than most imagine -- Particularly since so many Americans have small families and weak extended family relations.
Try to think of what separates those who get it from those who don't. Have any of you met financially successful people? Have you noticed certain things they have in common?
Have any of you met financially successful people?
No, I travel around by public transport.
As for being rich, it's not all that's it cracked up to be. Contentment levels vary little across income bands. Maybe, if you're clever but poor, like Steve, it's worse, but there's always the love of a good woman.
"As for being rich, it's not all that's it cracked up to be. Contentment levels vary little across income bands."
Read something interesting in a letter to the editor of the WSJ yesterday: Happiness is correlated more directly with success; successful people tend to make good money. This also explains why so many of the super-rich keep working when they already have more money than they will ever need (or are planning to give most of it to charity).
"Maybe, if you're clever but poor, like Steve."
I've wondered about Steve Sailer's financial situation. I don't think he's poor though. I doubt he makes a lot of money from the blog and writing gigs, but here are my guesses on him:
1) His wife has a decent-paying job.
2) He and his wife bought their house for a lot less than it's worth today.
3) Steve saved up a decent amount in his 401(k) when he was a corporate guy.
4) Steve & wife follow some Millionaire Next Door habits to control spending, e.g., not getting caught in status traps, buying used cars highly ranked by Consumer Reports, shopping at Costco, etc.
Steve, feel free to jump in and tell me if this is off-target. BTW, I have an idea for a way for you to make some extra money.
Svigger:
"5) People of mixed ancestry tend overwhelmingly to identify more closely with that part of their ancestry with the strongest identity and greater social cache. So, while half-jews might not be kosher, they'll tend to fall on jewry's side far more often than not (only non-white ethnicities, in general, have a hope in hell of outcompeting jewishness in this game)."
That must be why George Allen was so proud of being half-Jewish and identified so strongly with his mother's Jewish heritage, right? Svigger, you come into this too prejudiced to be objective. If you were objective, you'd realize that there is no societal advantage for a half-Jew to identify with his Jewish heritage (and plenty of incentive to hide it, as Allen's mother did). If a half-Jew emphasizes his Jewish heritage he incurs the "animus" of folks like you without getting anything positive in return. Being recognized as being part-Jewish won't help you get into a good school, or boost your political career like being part black would. Contrary to your suspicions, it won't get you any nepotistic advantage either. A smart Indian or WASP has a far better chance of getting a high-paying job at Goldman Sachs or Bear Stearns than a half-Jew with a 100 IQ.
I very much doubt Steve is going to discuss his financial situation with us, let alone tell us that, yes, he's actually pretty well-off.
For a start, it could imperil his next panhandling drive. He'll post some heartwarming about his daughter's pet rabbit and then wallop, a bash-for-cash. God love him.
This thread reminds me of something I love about America: far more often than not, people who get it get rich here.
Heh-heh. Since I'm smart but don't get it , this is exactly the reason I hate America; in France I'd be a proud graduate of one of the grandes ecoles . Just goes to show how your perception of what's right and wrong often depends on who you are.
But what I think you are referring to by 'getting it' is interpersonal skills and ability to practically observe the world, no?
Svigger,
"Wow, you're using the "one exception disproves the rule" argument! It's always sooo persuasive!"
Nice straw man. You know that the Allen example was a used as just that; my argument of why half-Jews tend not to identify with their Jewish heritage followed.
You are the one who claimed that half-Jews would tend to identify with their Jewish heritage; rather than using your puerile response ("Because you say they do?"), I gave you logical reasons why they tend not to: because there's no societal advantage in it, and there is also a major disadvantage (gaining the animus of folks like you).
"So, identifying with a group and crypsis are mutually exclusive; do I have your thesis right?"
First, I didn't present any "thesis". I simply pointed out why your claim that half-Jews will tend to identify with their Jewish heritage is false. Second, I have no idea what conspiracies you are hinting at with your "crypsis" reference (that Winona Ryder changed her last name to avoid a Preying Mantis?), but it is already setting off the bullshit alarm.
I don't know how much social advantage there is to being Jewish in the US. There certainly isn't a lot of overt antisemitism, the Jewish quota is gone, and you can get the best jobs even if you're not a white Episcopalian now, so most of the obvious downsides are gone. But assuming there's really a genetic advantage that leads to a standard deviation IQ boost, I'm pretty sure that's worth more than the rest of the social advantage.
Jewish culture developed under conditions where there way a lot of overt discrimination, ranging from jobs you couldn't have to violence on the street. Something about the culture got people to continue to self-identify as Jews, rather than to quietly fall away or convert and reap the benefits of eventually blending in and getting away from all the hassles. A natural assumption is that Jewish culture may still maintain some of those benefits--more immediate trust or closeness, a culture that supports intelligence and education and prudence, better business contacts, whatever. But I don't have any hard data on that....
Reading The Merchant of Venice last night I came across the description of Shylock's daughter Jessica. Her hands are described as whiter that paper. A nice exaggeration but it suggets that by 1600 the Askenazim had already lost the "swarthy" identifier of other semitic peoples: they had already become Euro-ified, to that extent at least.
Of course The Merchant of Venice also nicely illustrates the mutual antipathy between Jews and Christians — a debate that this thread also continues.
Here are my 2 cents on the antipathy between Jews and Christians.
I personally have never seen much anti-semitism among whites, and I don't notice it being expressed, except sometimes in the comments on Steve's blog. A niggling comment here and there is all I've ever noticed. Maybe I don't get out enough.
But I have seen it expressed in pathological extremes from Muslims everywhere, including in Asia where they would never see a jew. The extent of that hatred probably outstrips by a large factor, the hostility to jews in Europe in 1935. 'Madness' seems the only name appropriate for hatred this strong and with so little basis in reality.
Less strong than this, but still quite shocking to me when I first discovered it, was the intense dislike of Christianity among jews. The symbols of Christianity at Christmas and Easter seem to send them into paroxysms of disdain and disgust. This is not quite the same thing as hatred of Christians or whites in general, of course, but it is still striking.
The least 'hating' people of all are Christian whites. The only group they seem to have a problem with are Christian whites, who they are all too ready to blame for the world's ills.
One of the thing that irritates me about Jews is their insistence on taking collective credit for every Jewish success story while not being willing to accept collective blame for every charlatan or villain who happens to be Jewish.
I don't know how many times I've heard Jews argue that Marx shouldn't be regarded as Jewish in any real sense since he was secular and didn't adhere to "traditional" Jewish values. Yet they frequently insist on collective credit for the accomplishments of the equally secular, non-traditional Einstein.
Similarly, Jews will insist that nothing can be inferred about Jews from their disproportionate representation in Communist ranks. Solzhenitsyn has claimed Jews constituted something like two-thirds of the Cheka, the KGB's predecessor. In all the Jewish criticism of Solzhenitsyn, I was surprised to hear no factual rebuttals of this figure, only ad hominem attacks on Solzhenitsyn for having dared broach the subject. That, of course, doesn't stop Jews from insisting that we can infer much about the attitude of non-Jewish nations under Nazi occupation who collaborated in the carrying out the Holocaust.
Jews insist that non-Jews ought make no collective inferences of Jews unless they constitute unmixed praise. That doesn't stop them from engaging in the exact same sort of behavior when passing judgment on non-Jews.
Good point above. The new definition of racism is to say anything the least bit negative about another race or ethnic group — whether it's true or not.
Here's something annoying that many of you may not have caught.
There is a children's program called Little Einsteins which, laudably, introduces children to music and art. However of the Little Einsteins themselves, the musical geniuses, two of them are jewish, one is asian and one is black. Apparantly, if you are a German, Italian, French or English child you needn't bother thinking yourself to be a musical prodigy. However all of the music that they feature was written by German, Italian, French etc etc composers. (No jews, no asians, no blacks.) And similarly for the art.
I'm sure that the average 3 yr old is going to pick up none of this, but you have to wonder what the writer, director and producer of this confection (who is Jewish) thought he was doing here. ("Let's stick it to them even though they'll never notice any of it. Fuck the goy brats.")
And I'll add that there is nothing accidental about Marx's being jewish and his invention of marxism. The utopian tendencies in judaism and marxism are clearly the same under the skin.
Freudianism should be added to the list of intellectual world disasters.
A good example of Jewish dual morality:
Hence the strange boast [of Dr. Hausner, the prosecutor in the Eichmann trial]: "We make no ethnic distinctions," which sounded less strange in Israel, where rabbinical law rules the personal status of Jewish citizens, with the result that no Jew can marry a non-Jew; marriages concluded abroad are recognized, but children of mixed marriages are legally bastards (children of Jewish parentage born out of wedlock are legitimate), and if one happens to have a non-Jewish mother he can neither be married nor buried. The outrage in this state of affairs has become more acute since 1953, when a sizable portion of jurisdiction in matters of family law was handed over to the secular courts. Women can now inherit property and in general enjoy equal status with men. Hence it is hardly respect for the faith or the power of the fanatically religious minority that prevents the government of Israel from substituting secular jurisdiction for rabbinical law in matters of marriage and divorce. Israeli citizens, religious and nonreligious, seem agreed upon the undesirability of a written constitution in which such a law would embarrassingly have to be spelled out. Whatever the reasons, there certainly was something breathtaking in the naiveté with which the prosecution denounced the infamous Nuremberg Laws of 1935, which had prohibited intermarriage between and sexual intercourse between Jews and Germans. The better informed among the correspondents were well aware of the irony, but they did not mention it in their reports. This, they figured, was not the time to tell the Jews what was wrong with the laws and institutions of their own country.
Arendt, Hannah. Eichmann in Jerusalem, New York, 1964.
As the result, tens of thousands of Russian Israelis trek back to Russia and find their real country and their real home there in their native land. The Zionist idea had romantic appeal, but such things do not last. In the 1970s, I met in Tanzania with some American Blacks who moved to Africa on a wave of romantic search for their roots. The experience rarely lasted more than five years tops. During that time, they came to recognize that they are Americans for better or for worse, while Africans are organized into many nations and tribes, none of which they could fit into. You can’t “come back” after two hundred, let alone two thousand, years.
http://revisionistreview.blogspot.com/
It would be interesting to put some numbers on those ex-Soviet Isreali immigrant Jews who have i)returned to Russia, Ukraine etc. and ii)relocated to Western Europe and North America.
Anonymously, on the Internet perhaps, or with tenure. Otherwise, good luck keeping your job.
There are all sorts of things you cannot say, especially ridiculous and untrue things, and still be guaranteed your job. Think about it, Svigor. I'm sure you can come up with plenty of examples.
This seems to be the most powerful "argument" against revisionists (I am not a revisionist, but I've certainly read enough of their material to become a skeptic).
Yes, I have read enough of their material to become a skeptic, so I'll make that "argument." Especially since it is quite obvious most Holocaust deniers don't bother trying to find the flaws in their own claims. You would think the easily debunked "facts" about the Holocaust offered up by David Irving in his libel suit against Deborah Lipstadt would make Holocaust deniers examine their arguments more carefully. Apparently not. Just like 9/11 truthers, no matter how often their stupid "arguments" are refuted, they carry on as though nothing had happened.
I don't think they're stupid at all. I think they're necessary.
No. They're just stupid.
I wouldn't know. They do seem to make jews feel warm and fuzzy, however.
I don't know how Jews feel about such laws. In any event, it is irrelevant. I may like all sorts of European laws; that doesn't mean I had any role in getting them enacted.
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