It's hard to believe that many things are coincidence, but that's irrelevant to whether or not they are. In response to your specific question, however, I don't have enough data to give you a sure answer, but I believe that jewish culture has more than a little to do with it.
The National Jewish Population Survey 2000-01 goes further. It points out that:
"More than half of all Jewish Adults (55%) received a college degree and a quarter (25%) earned a graduate degree." "The Comparable figures for the total U.S. population are 29% and 6%." As a result,
"More than 60% of all employed Jews are in one of the three highest status job categories: professional or technical (41%), management and executive (13%) and business and finance (7%)." "In contrast, 46% of all Americans work in these three high status areas, 29% in professional or technical jobs, 12% in management and executive positions and 5% in business and finance."
I think your mistaking jews for well asians. sorry to say but most of the jews I have met and seen in the public eye couldn't give a fuck about education and learning except as a means to aquire money, power, or influence. its a feel good notion to make an oppressed people feel better about them selves.I believe its the Jewish obsession with education and learning. There is a strong emphasis on study and bettering oneself. Take a look at these statistics.
Jews represent 0.24% of the world's population.
30% of the top 101 richest Americans published by Forbes 400 in 2010 September 23 were Jewish.
Someone please try and explain that to me. I find it hard to believe it is coincidence.
[/QUOTE]I think your mistaking jews for well asians. sorry to say but most of the jews I have met and seen in the public eye couldn't give a fuck about education and learning except as a means to aquire money, power, or influence. its a feel good notion to make an oppressed people feel better about them selves.
There is hard data that supports that hypothesis and would help to explain the success of Jews in the modern world.
Not a coincidence. More like a monopoly. Wait till you have to compete against Asians, not just westerners . There is a reason all these wealthy Jews are all present in western society. Can you name say the top 3 wealthy Jews in Asian countries? There are about 50,000 of them [excluding Israel] so by your calculations there should be quite a few.
What calculations exactly? I fail to see what your point is. And I fail to see how the Jews accomplished any sort of monopoly.
Jews represent 0.24% of the world's population.
30% of the top 101 richest Americans published by Forbes 400 in 2010 September 23 were Jewish.
Someone please try and explain that to me. I find it hard to believe it is coincidence.
Heck, I don't think your even putting forth any specific argument in this post that I can think of.
A lot of people are talking about David Brooks’s distastefully-smug column in the Times yesterday about Jewish achievement, in which he says that we are 2 percent of the U.S. population and 25 percent of this and that. And that we get all the patents in the Middle East while the Arabs smoke hookahs.
He asks how this can be, and talks about our incredible culture. I agree: it’s a helluva bookish culture. Though that same intellectual culture is going out the window now that the chief occupation of Jewish leadership is saying, Repeat after us, apartheid is democracy.
But I’d like to inject a realistic note here. How much of Jewish achievement reflects the fact that Jews look out for one another? When I had to get a partner on this website to keep it going, I was most comfortable getting another Jew. Years ago when I was at the Harvard Crimson newspaper, my Irish-Catholic friend Mary Ridge informed me that it was a "Jewish club"–we selected for our own kind; and the Crimson produced a lot of professional journalism talent. I have gotten most of my journalism work from Jewish bosses.
Jews have kinship networks as strong as other people’s, maybe more strong. All that Hollywood talent– producers are always aware of who is a Jew, and I am sure they feel more comfortable hiring Jews. Landsman. My parents liked the idea of my marrying a Jew because Jews are gemutlich, as my mom always says– family, kin. We know all the social cues, can finish one another’s sentences, etc.
And look at the New York Times, where Brooks works. Is it an expression of Jewish genius that most of the political columnists are Jewish? Tom Friedman, Paul Krugman, Frank Rich, David Brooks et al. Or does it maybe reflect the fact that a Jewish family has majority ownership of the newspaper and that most of the big editors have been Jewish and at some level, unconscious or otherwise, they favor Jews?
So I think some of the amazing record of Jewish achievement reflects discrimination; and Jews are powerful enough in this society that we ought to be conscious of that. Brooks has often praised the late sociologist E. Digby Baltzell, and Baltzell said as much about the last establishment; he said that WASPs favor other WASPs, and that it was hurting the American establishment.
I venture that the same thing is happening today in the Jewish portion of the establishment. We discriminate in favor of our own; and it’s doing a number on foreign policy.
What should be done about this? Jews in powerful positions should be aware of this, and seek greater diversity in their hiring.
Jews represent 0.24% of the world's population.
30% of the top 101 richest Americans published by Forbes 400 in 2010 September 23 were Jewish.
Someone please try and explain that to me. I find it hard to believe it is coincidence.
talk about arrogance. one of the biggest reasons people dislike jews is this kind of arrogance. the you can't know anything about us without being us.Well first off your not Jewish.
actually you don't know shit. you have your own notions of my beliefs that have more to do with your own bigotries than my ownSecondly I know you well enough pj dude that you came in here with numerous preconceptions already.
actually no you don't. you have a set of information that is inconclusive and you just automaticaly assumed it supported your belief systemsI have data to back me up, you do not.
I don't have a poor opinion of jews. that is something you and the other zionists feel I do because I won't just ok jews deserve more than others. you think I hate jews because I dislike Israel. just because I hold jews accountable for their actions, beliefs, and wants doesn't mean I have a poor opinion of them. no one should get a moral pass for the evil they have committed or wished to commit. it just means I treat them the same as everyone on else. I can see how given your attitudes that is a bad thing but its not.Your poor opinions of the Jews in general do not garner you any respect.
Thats because I'm not making an argument. I'm challenging your claim of Jews being good at making money - they are but only in western societies and western economies where they had a monopoly for many years. Having a community established in an occupation is an advantage that Indians have recognised for a long time, its why the caste system is framed around occupation - its why Laxmi Mittal is on Goldman Sachs BOD. Its not unique to Jews - the WASPs did in the US before as well.
Well for starters I appreciate the fact that unlike other people in this thread you don't just call me arrogant and sweep my points under the rug but instead you call me arrogant and actually challenge my points. That is what I call integrity, you talk the talk but also walk the walk.
However I feel as though your points are invalid. The fact is that the only way to challenge those statistics I have listed is to have another environment replicating the population of Jews in the western world but the Jews in that environment are only as successful as the others around them. The fact is that the number of Jews in Asia is puny compared to that of the western world so you cannot call it evidence against my statistics because in no way does it even come close to a similar environment and similar population as mine.
At the same time your argument is backed up not by fact but by opinion. Namely your argument boils down to "Have you ever heard of a rich Asian Jew? I haven't, you haven't, so that must mean that they don't exist."
But you don't actually list alternative explanations for that. One is the small Jewish populations in those countries, another is the fact that Christianity did not hold those countries in a stranglehold. Yet another is that those countries may not have persecuted Jews to the extent of other European countries.
Your points are marred by the fact that they could be explained by dozens of other legitimate answers as well as the fact that maybe Jews aren't so special after all.
So Sam, in conclusion I respect your argument a lot more then most other people's in this thread. You actually made an intelligent argument against my points rather then just name calling and finger pointing. But in the end I disagree with your points, not on the basis of my Judaism nor my faith, but because I feel that it does not satisfactorily explain the survival of a puny faith for nearly two millenia in exile and that has survived more exterminations, genocides, and holocaust then any other religion out there.
What about the losers that were snuffed out completely by advancement. What did they suffer? What did Judaism do for them ? Oh yeah they are exiled into oblivion for ever more so who cares. They didn't survive so fuck em. There not part of fold . Does your faith allow for god to be God of everyone and not just the Jew ? If not everyone what is Gods plan for all the non Jews?
I was thinking you were an Atheist? Your not an Atheist then ? If your not your god warns you of when the traveler knocks on your door. I think you should read the temple prayer dedication and think about your position
I am Jewish, but I have a cynical perception of reality. Really I just like to take whichever side of the argument which is under represented as in this case.
I am atheistic in my beliefs, but I do have a Jewish background. Its hard to say really, Judaism isn't just a religion, its a way of thought, a way of seeing the world.
I am saying this not as a Jew but as a cynic, a realist, and an atheist. The Jews survived when at the same time so many others died out because for some reason they were better then those that died out.
My faith dictates that there is no G-d. But as a Jew my faith tells me that what I believe is what is right, and what others believe is also right. Life's paths are rarely straight and there are many of them. Whose to say there isn't more then one way to get where you want to go?
G-d's plan for the non Jews? Well again, I am an atheist, but my Jewish perspective is that there is no hell, so everyone gets a ticket to heaven.
How am I supposed to know G-d's plans? I don't even believe he exists. And even if he did have a plan what in the world did I do to deserve to know what it is?
I would like to think that G-d created us all with the ability to reason and to choose, and that reality is impartial and chaotic.
My faith and my prayers exist solely (in my mind) to thank G-d and to learn more about him, its not to beg him to let me into heaven or to keep me alive or other some such.
As I said before, I am a cynic, my true beliefs are in atheism. But when it comes to debates I find that I must stand up for the little guy, to argue for the under represented side. Despite my Jewish background I have argued against Israel and for Israel on different threads and debates. I am not so firmly entrenched in my beliefs that I refuse to acknowledge the validity of others.
Well for starters I appreciate the fact that unlike other people in this thread you don't just call me arrogant and sweep my points under the rug but instead you call me arrogant and actually challenge my points. That is what I call integrity, you talk the talk but also walk the walk.
However I feel as though your points are invalid. The fact is that the only way to challenge those statistics I have listed is to have another environment replicating the population of Jews in the western world but the Jews in that environment are only as successful as the others around them. The fact is that the number of Jews in Asia is puny compared to that of the western world so you cannot call it evidence against my statistics because in no way does it even come close to a similar environment and similar population as mine.
At the same time your argument is backed up not by fact but by opinion. Namely your argument boils down to "Have you ever heard of a rich Asian Jew? I haven't, you haven't, so that must mean that they don't exist."
But you don't actually list alternative explanations for that. One is the small Jewish populations in those countries, another is the fact that Christianity did not hold those countries in a stranglehold. Yet another is that those countries may not have persecuted Jews to the extent of other European countries.
Your points are marred by the fact that they could be explained by dozens of other legitimate answers as well as the fact that maybe Jews aren't so special after all.
So Sam, in conclusion I respect your argument a lot more then most other people's in this thread. You actually made an intelligent argument against my points rather then just name calling and finger pointing. But in the end I disagree with your points, not on the basis of my Judaism nor my faith, but because I feel that it does not satisfactorily explain the survival of a puny faith for nearly two millenia in exile and that has survived more exterminations, genocides, and holocaust then any other religion out there.
Winston Churchill the Prime Minister of that time responded with a telegram to Wavell asking, if food was so scarce, "why Gandhi hadn't died yet. ..."
Persecution? pfft! You ain't seen nothing yet
Exfuckingcuse me?
What an amazingly dense asshole you really are.
If I were to pretend your parallel was actually that - a real parallel - then I should somehow be amazed to find similarly or much more extreme statements by members of the German WWII 'establishment' about Jewish concentration camp victims, since you're now claiming this was your point all along. Think it's possible some Germans of that period might have said something similar? Think there's any doubt at all that they did? Pathetic.
And, ultimately, you were implying that Jewish people weren't really persecuted. Idiotic, vicious, impressively myopic.
Young Israelis moving to Berlin in droves
City from which Hitler unleashed genocide of six million Jews now attracting small but growing community of Jews from Israel for whom it embodies freedom, tolerance, anything-goes spirit
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3953354,00.html