Wow, so you give yourself prizes... isn't that special. Kind of like Hollywood giving each other prizes for movies no one watched.
Jews aren't a race. They are a religion.
Religion is a choice.
Richard Lynn, The Chosen People: A Study of Jewish Intelligence and Achievement, Washington Summit Publishers, 2011, 408 pp., book review by Byron M. Roth
The Chosen People: A study of Jewish Intelligence and Achievement is the most recent work of
Richard Lynn dealing with group differences in IQ and their ramifications. As in all of his previous work over the past decade, he substantiates his arguments with huge quantities of empirical data. He advances his positions dispassionately and lets the facts speak for themselves, which they do in impressive, nearly irrefutable fashion. In his previous books he examined racial and ethnic differences in IQ for many groups.
The Chosen People is a case study of one distinct group that has shown remarkably similar patterns of achievement in a wide variety of settings.
Professor Lynn begins by pointing out the extraordinary success of Jews in almost every field. In the 19th century the restrictions that had prevented most Jews from advanced nonreligious study began to be lifted in most of Western Europe, and by mid-century, “people began to observe that Jews were outstandingly successful, and began to speculate that this was attributable to their intellect.” (Unless otherwise noted, all quotations are from Professor Lynn.)
At that time the great bulk of Jews were still living in Eastern Europe, but owing to pogroms beginning around 1880, Jews began migrating to Western Europe and especially to the United States. They formed part of the massive immigration to the US in the period from 1880 to 1924.
Prof. Lynn writes:
They arrived as penniless refugees unable to speak the languages of their new countries; they were the “huddled masses” from the most backward region of Europe. Yet by the middle decades of the 20th century, the children and grandchildren of these immigrants were doing far better than their Gentile hosts on all indices of socioeconomic status and earnings and outperforming them by several orders of magnitude in obtaining elite academic distinction . . . .
Professor Lynn explains that there are four major subpopulations of Jews, differentiated genetically by their different experiences following their expulsion from Israel in the first century AD. The most populous group, by far, are the Ashkenazi, who migrated to Western Europe. However, “In the period between 1290 and 1500, Jews were extensively persecuted and expelled from Western and Central Europe . . . . Most of them migrated eastward into present-day Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Russia.” There they remained until the mass migrations of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Those who stayed were, in the main, killed by the Nazis toward the end of World War II. Most of those who survived the war migrated to Israel and other, mainly English-speaking countries.
A second group, the Sephardim, migrated to the Iberian Peninsula after the Roman expulsion, where they lived, largely under Muslim rule, until 1492. Jews flourished during the early period of Muslim rule, but from about 1000, a change in Muslim leadership led to increased persecution. When Spain drove out the Muslims in 1492, it also expelled all Jews who refused to convert to Christianity. Portugal expelled its Jews in 1496. Most Iberian Jews then went to the Balkans, though others migrated to the Middle East, the Netherlands, and Italy. Prof. Lynn notes that “their descendants in the mid-20th century numbered about two million and were widely dispersed throughout the world.”
A third Jewish group, the Mizrahim, settled in various lands in the Middle East and North Africa during various diasporas beginning about 600 BC. These lands were conquered by the Arabs in the 8th century, under whose rule Jews were tolerated but subject to various restrictions. This area was conquered in the 16th century by the Ottoman Turks, who “provided a generally benign environment for Jews and other non-Muslims.” That is the main reason why Jews expelled from Spain and Portugal made their way into the Ottoman Empire.
A fourth group, the Falashas, “are Ethiopians who converted to Judaism at some uncertain time many centuries ago.” The state of Israel recognized these genetically distinct Africans as Jews who were, therefore, entitled to take advantage of the Jewish Right of Return. Prof. Lynn writes that “by 1998, virtually all of them had left Ethiopia and taken up residence in Israel. They numbered about 80,000 . . . [or] about 1.4 percent of the population of Israel.”
With the exception of the Ethiopians, the three Jewish subpopulations greatly resemble each other genetically and are distinguishable from Gentiles. Nevertheless, centuries of separation produced considerable differences among them, due in part to intermarriage with Gentiles, even in the face of strict endogamy rules.
The most notable difference among Jewish groups is average IQ. While the Ashkenazi average is 110, the Sephardic average is about 99, close to that of Europeans. The Mizrahim score about 91, markedly lower than Europeans, but higher than the Arabs with whom they have lived, whose average is about 84. The genetically distinct Falashas have IQs of about 70, typical of sub-Saharan people.
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Judaism is both a race and a religion. Anyone of any race may convert to Judaism.
Nevertheless, nearly 80% of Jews are Ashkenazi Jews. When we add to the Ashkenazim the Sephardim, and the Mizrahim these make up the vast majority of Jews. These have ancestors who were Old Testament Israelites. They are considered to be racially Jewish, regardless of religious belief and practice. This is why Karl Marx, Leon Trotsky, and Sigmund Freud are considered to have been Jews, even though they were atheists.
