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The Jewish Voice
- Abstract
It has been frequently observed, by both philo-Semites and anti-Semites, that the numbers of Jews participating in the various fields of intellectual life are out of all proportion to the numbers of Jews in the general population. This is a statistical reality that can hardly be denied. In the United States, for example, though Jews are rather less than 2 percent of the population, if one looks to areas of activity such as journalism and criticism, or scientific research, or academic disciplines like mathematics, history, sociology, and English literature, a fourth or a third or sometimes more than half the leaders in the field can turn out to be Jews.
The most plausible reason for this disproportionate representation is, I believe, sociocultural. But it should be emphasized at the outset that the large number of Jews in intellectual endeavors does not automatically translate into a decisive Jewish influence on intellectual life. For good sociological cause, many Jews have flowed into the intellectual professions; but the purported dominance of Jews in intellectual life proves in many key instances to be a mirage.
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