by Rabbi Avi Shafran
It',s not our Intelligence Quotients that count, but our Righteousness Quotients.
In the April issue of Commentary, a scholar dared to raise one of the few remaining issues still considered impolite these days for public discussion: Jewish intelligence.
In an essay entitled "Jewish Genius," political scientist and writer Charles Murray -- who is not Jewish -- outlines the historical and statistical data suggesting Jewish intellectual acumen and accomplishment, as well as a variety of theories seeking to explain them.
While most of us Jews will readily admit that we personally know many members of the tribe who are not very smart at all, Dr. Murray insists that "the average Jew is at the 75th percentile" of the IQ scale and that "the proportion of Jews with IQs of 140 or higher is somewhere around six times the proportion of everyone else." Some, moreover, have noticed that a number of world-changing ideas, both religious ones like monotheism and scientific ones like relativity, have their roots in a certain ethnicity.
After exploring a number of theories addressing the anomaly, Dr. Murray is less than satisfied. Recent historical circumstances might have genetically favored Jews of higher intellect, he allows; ...   more »