Those Crafty Jews
Oct 23rd, 2010 | By admin | Category: 2006-7, Archivesby Rabbi Yisrael Rutman
I don’t know whether to call it a trend or an epidemic, but lately there seems to be an unusually high incidence of discussion concerning Jewish intelligence.
When Micheal (sic) Ray Richardson, coach of the Albany Patroons in the Continental Basketball Assn., was asked recently by sportswriters about his contract negotiations, he said he didn’t expect problems because “I’ve got big-time lawyers. Big-time Jew lawyers.” Richardson went on to rate Jewish know-how in other areas, as well: “They’ve got the best security system in the world. Have you ever been to an airport in Tel Aviv? They’re real crafty. Listen, they are hated all over the world, so they’ve got to be crafty. They got a lot of power in this world, you know what I mean? Which I think is great. I don’t think there’s nothing wrong with it. If you look in most professional sports, they’re run by Jewish people. If you look at a lot of most successful corporations and stuff, more businesses, they’re run by Jewish [sic]. It’s not a knock, but they are some crafty people.”
When Richardson’s remarks became public, he was suspended from his job. Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, demanded an apology for “conjuring up classic anti-Semitic stereotypes…. We hope that Micheal Ray will realize the pain his words have caused to many people and make clear that he understands why his remarks about Jews were so inappropriate and offensive.”
In a similar flare-up, former Wisconsin governor and a Republican presidential candidate, Tommy Thompson, confided to the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism: “I’m in the private sector and for the first time in my life I’m earning money. You know that’s sort of part of the Jewish tradition.” When it was brought to Thompson’s attention that his comment could be taken the wrong way, he hastened to explain that he merely wished to compliment the Jewish people for their success in business.
The defamation watchdogs do have a point about the potential hazards of this kind of talk. In a 1991 speech to students at Cairo University, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak demonstrated how a disproportionate regard for Jewish brains can be put to nefarious uses. Speaking about the October 1973 (Yom Kippur) war, he declared: “Against us stood the most intelligent people on earth—a people that controls the international press, the world economy, and world finances. We succeeded in compelling the Jews to do what we wanted; we received all our land back, up to the last grain of sand! We have outwitted them, and what have we given them in return? A piece of paper!”
But as pundit Zev Chafets has pointed out, everything Richardson said about the Jews was both positive and true, if overstated. Israel itself brags about its security expertise. And “that Jews are hated and need to protect themselves? That’s the founding premise of the Anti-Defamation League itself,” Chafets observed. Chafets recommends that Foxman’s energies would be better focused on the likes of Hamas and Al Quaeda. Not every philo-Semite is an anti-Semite in disguise.
One thing that all concerned do agree upon, though, is that Jewish intellectual superiority is a fact not to be denied. The Nobel Prize list has often been cited as proof. As Charles Murray writes in the current issue of Commentary (“Jewish Genius,” April 2007): “In the first half of the 20th century, despite pervasive and continuing social discrimination against Jews throughout the Western world, despite the retraction of legal rights, and despite the Holocaust, Jews won 14 percent of Nobel Prizes in literature, chemistry, physics, and medicine/physiology. In the second half of the 20th century, when Nobel Prizes began to be awarded to people from all over the world, that figure rose to 29 percent. So far, in the 21st century, it has been 32 percent. Jews constitute about two-tenths of one percent of the world’s population. You do the math.”
Murray wants to know why. After considering and rejecting as ultimately inadequate such theories as the winnowing out of inferior intelligence through persecution, the social strategy of marrying-for-brains, Murray finally takes sanctuary in his own pet hypothesis—that “the Jews are God’s chosen people.”
Jewish tradition itself, however, stands in counterpoint to the whole discussion. For within the sacred literature, intelligence, per se, is not so highly valued. Abraham, for example, is extolled for his bold defiance of the idolators of his epoch and his selfless devotion to serving God as expressed in the Akeida (Binding of Isaac). Moses is praised in the Torah for being the most humble man on the face of the earth. The Jewish people in general are likewise praised “not because you are the most numerous but because you are the smallest.” The Sages explain it in the sense that they diminish their own stature by humbling themselves before G-d. He chose them as his am segulah, treasured people, because of their elevated qualities, not their elevated SAT scores.
Torah, the repository of wisdom, is available to everyone. During this time of year, from Passover to Shavuot, it is customary to study Pirkei Avot (Chapters of the Fathers). The sixth chapter sets forth the 48 ways to acquire Torah. Native intelligence is scarcely mentioned, if at all. Instead, the list is made up of such unlikely pathways as acceptance of suffering, sharing the burdens of others, loving people, loving righteousness and charity, avoiding honor, giving credit where credit is due.
Why should this be? In the daily prayers, God is addressed as chonen l’adam da’as, who favors man with knowledge. You can be a Nobel Prize winner with the brains of an Einstein, but if you have the wrong attitude, if you think you’re better than others, if you don’t think your smarts were a gift, then whatever other knowledge and laurels you may accumulate, God will not favor you with His Torah.
Of course, not everybody is able to grasp such a concept. But for those with the necessary quotient of craftiness, it’s as clear as the nose on your face.
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