Recently I noticed something that struck me as remarkable: the outsized number of Nobel prizes, in areas ranging from the sciences to the arts, that have gone to Jews.
Why does that strike me as something worth looking at? It’s because I feel a deep unease that damage from the war in Iran as well as from the conflicts in Gaza and Lebanon could reach beyond the obvious impacts on global stability and economies. It potentially could deprive the world of future advances in knowledge that are essential to provide desperately needed solutions to global problems. Such advances depend on a quest for knowledge by people raised to question all they see—a characteristic that has long been integral to Jewish culture—and that I fear could now be at risk.
First, some statistics. Since the first Nobel Prizes were awarded in 1901, more than 200 individuals identifying as Jewish have won. That represents 24.7% of all recipients despite Jews comprising roughly 0.2% of the world population. (I excluded Nobel Peace Prizes as they frequently go to organizations.)
Of U.S. recipients, roughly 37% have been Jewish, while 40% of all laureates in economic sciences have been Jewish. Much of the Jewish diaspora was concentrated in the U.S., particularly after World War II, and the U.S. has benefited hugely from their intellectual achievements.
What accounts for this statistically improbable concentration of Jewish laureates? It has nothing to do with any inherent racial superiority. Modern science has profoundly disproved racial superiority theories, including those targeting or elevating Jewish people. Race, in every way, is a social construct rather than a biological one. In fact, the Human Genome Project confirmed that humans are 99.9% identical at the DNA level, making the concept of superior or inferior genetic lineages scientifically invalid. No race can be distinguished from another genetically, and especially not a group like the Jews whose diasporas are so widely dispersed.
Rather, it’s a matter of culture. Speaking personally as someone raised within the Jewish culture, I feel that whatever success I’ve had I owe to a culture that encouraged me to ask questions. When Jews study the Talmud, they are bed-rocked in a culture constantly asking “why.” In fact, the Torah contains several verses that specifically mention children asking questions. It is more than encouraged, it is foundational.
Temple Beth Shalom posts on its website, “In Judaism, asking questions isn’t just encouraged—it’s holy. Our entire tradition is built on inquiry, dialogue, interpretation, and the belief that learning is a lifelong pursuit. From the Four Questions at Passover to rabbinic debate in the Talmud, Jewish life thrives when we explore, challenge, and wonder. Curiosity isn’t a sign of not knowing—it’s a sign of being engaged.”
When you’re taught from a very young age to be engaged, you carry that attitude with you your entire life. You don’t just nod your head. You ask “why” –and those who ask “why” become creators of new knowledge.
Some startling statistics
As I was perusing the winners, some other statistics struck me. If you look at the results starting in 1948—the year Israel was founded—an astounding 223 awards, representing 32%, or nearly one-third, of Nobel Prizes have gone to Jews, an even higher percentage than during the overall span of the Nobel Prizes. It’s more than 160 times greater than what you’d expect based on the percentage of Jews in the world. But equally striking, among those 223 prizes, only 11 went to an Israeli citizen—vs. 212 awarded to non-Israeli Jews—even though Israeli citizens account for around half of the world’s Jews. That disparity, too, demands an explanation.
The existence of Israel provided something essential to the Jewish people wherever they lived: a buffer allowing a feeling of safety against the discrimination against Jews that has existed since time immemorial. Israel offered a homeland, a shelter, a guarantee another Holocaust could never take place. And that sense of safety created a space where Jews could feel free to pursue the search for answers in whatever field they chose.
But Israel’s need to protect itself as a state took a toll on Israelis themselves. People who are bombarded and fear for their safety have less capacity to apply their intellect towards creating new knowledge. “So much of our intellectual capital and our Jewish ingenuity is channeled to our defense needs rather than to things that are measured by the Nobel,” explains Professor Ziva Shamir, head of the Rosenberg School for Jewish Studies at Tel Aviv University. “The years spent under straining conditions in the army are the formative years. It takes a toll.”
Don’t get me wrong. Having 11 Nobel Prize winners is pretty darn good. In fact, in August 2015, Times Higher Education ranked Israel the fifth best performer this century based on the number of Nobel Prizes won, as well as in the significance and prestige of each prize won. The publication also ranked global universities based on Nobel Prize winners, and the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology placed eighth—higher on the list than Harvard and every British University. And that was before the most recent Israeli economic wins of Joshua Angrist and Joel Mokyr. On a per capita basis, Israel has certainly outperformed.
But the mandate to serve in the Israeli Defense Force usually comes at an age when American teenagers are just beginning to embark on their education, wide-eyed and eager with their whole life in front of them. While 18-year-olds are picking out bedsheets for their dorm rooms in Idaho, 18-year-olds in Israeli are going to war. And as Rabbi Jonathan Sacks points out, “As Jews we believe that to defend a country you need an army, but to defend a civilization you need education.”
Who’s the puppet?
The relationship between Israel and the U.S. has evolved. Initially the U.S. withheld military funding from Israel to avoid alienating Arab oil partners. During the first decade of Israel’s existence, the only money it received from the U.S. was in the form of economic loans. It wasn’t until the early 1960s that America began to provide substantial and sustained military aid to Israel, with official military funding intensifying after the Six-Day War in 1967 and cementing in the late 1970s. That funding and dependency it created seems to have had a grave spiritual and cultural impact on Israel.
And since shortly after the 1967 war, and picking up steam after the 1979 revolution in Iran, Israel has assumed a major role in U.S. foreign defense. In particular, it has been the basis of our foreign policy and military projection throughout the Middle East. We bought this by taking care of Israel’s monetary defense needs and giving them the ability to punch much, much higher than its size alone would suggest.
In the wake of the most recent war in Iran, some have called the U.S. a puppet of Israel. But it’s almost comical to think a giant power like the U.S. could be bullied into war by a small state like Israel, even with someone as militant as Netanyahu at the helm. More likely it has been the other way around: the U.S. has used Israel as a tool of war to serve our material interests in the Middle East. It has cost both Israel and the U.S.
The U.S. is home to the largest base of Jewish people outside of Israel. The country is incredibly important to the Jewish diaspora. And the biggest loss of all from our military support of Israel, both before and including today in Iran, may be the impact on our intellectual base of Jewish people here in the U.S.
The profound sense of relief that so many Jewish people across the globe felt from Israel’s creation is fading. Non-Israeli Jews benefited from an existential sense of security after Israel’s founding, but that sense of security will diminish if Israel in tandem with the U.S. continues on its current course, which is making Israel ever more vulnerable.
The depressing upshot could be that the world misses out on potential intellectual achievement as the U.S. sees its capacity to make ground-breaking scientific advances or to create literary masterpieces become diminished. Our future roster of Nobelists could become far sparser.
The U.S. and Israel both have a choice. With respect to Israel, I wrote previously about my hope that if Netanyahu were to step down, the ceaseless fighting might end. And as for the U.S., we can let Israel be. We can try and figure out what they’re doing right instead of continuing to exploit them for material gain.
I frequently talk about how essential it is for the world to cooperate so that people around the world can flourish. Sometimes the unintended consequences of war are worse than war itself. As Professor Shamir warns, “One day the Israeli ministers of education from all generations will have to answer to the charge of what happened to the collective Jewish genius in Israel.” And one day we will all face a world that is either bleak and desolate because we have allowed materiality and war to dominate, or a world that is vital and prosperous with spiritual cohesion that connects and benefits us all.
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