Ashkenazi Jewish intelligence

Ashkenazi Jewish intelligence, often colloquially referred to as "Jewish genius",^[1][2] is the stereotype^[3] that Ashkenazi Jews tend to have a higher intelligence than other ethnic groups.

Measures of intelligence often exhibit cultural bias.^[4]

In response to controversy sparked by the publication of The Bell Curve in 1994, a 1995 task force by the American Psychological Association found that racial and ethnic groups often have just as much or more variability of intelligence test performance within groups than between groups.^[5]

Over the course of subsequent decades, a consensus has emerged in the scientific community that ethnic or racial differences in average intelligence test performance are not due to genetic differences between these groups.^[6][7][8] Growing evidence indicates that sociocultural factors explain such differences.^[9][10]

Jewish success in many intellectual fields often prompts the stereotype. Many who argue for Jewish intelligence have pointed out the List of Jewish Nobel laureates amassing 22% of Nobel Prizes across all scientific categories while Jewish people comprise only 0.2% of global population at roughly 14 million people.^[11][12] Even a small increase in average IQ would represent significant representation of outliers.^[11] One psychologist, commenting on the state of research, says "it is fair to say that most, though not all, studies give Ashkenazi descendants a higher IQ than non-Jewish whites", but argues that the effect size remains contentious and unknown.^[11] Many studies in the literature are often done by disreputable researchers, which may make assessing the size of difference difficult.^[11]

Sander Gilman argues that implicit assumptions of Jewish intelligence may help fuel fear and common stereotypes of Jews controlling higher professions such as law.^[3]

A 2004 paper by self-professed "scientific racist" Richard Lynn found that American Jews obtained significantly higher verbal IQ scores than the average white gentile, and even higher scores compared to black peoples.^[13][a]

A controversial paper was published in 2006 called "Natural History of Ashkenazi Intelligence" proposed that Ashkenazi Jews had a biological basis for intelligence.^[15] The paper was authored by three authors who have been linked to theories described as "scientific racism",^[16] The paper claimed that Ashkenazi Jews as a group inherit higher verbal and mathematical intelligence the basis of inherited diseases, selective pressure from the peculiar economic situation of Ashkenazi Jews in the Middle Ages, and supposed lack of intermarriage with outside groups. This paper suggested that the average IQ score of Ashkenazi Jews fall in a range of 108–115 under some studies, which would be significantly higher than that of any other ethnic group in the world.^[15][17][18] The paper received widespread coverage in media.^[19][20][21]

The paper attracted significant criticism and controversy. Steven Pinker described the paper's central theory as "tentative", stating that it "could turn out to be mistaken" and cautioning that "any characterization of Jews in biological terms smacks of Nazi pseudoscience".^[22] David Reich has argued that contrary to selective pressure theory, some of the inherited diseases that Ashkenazi Jews suffer may be more likely due to genetic drift. Adam Rutherford argues that some of these diseases may have been commonplace during the Middle Ages, and that genetic studies may indicate the bottleneck that caused the accumulation of disease occurred before the Medieval period.^[23][24] Sander Gilman has argued it is problematic to paint Jews with tropes of being physically enfeebled geniuses, with the idea of hereditary illnesses in Ashkenazi Jews being due to consanguinity, having been previously suggested by 19th century French neurologist Jean-Martin Charcot.^[25]

Bret Stephens cited the study in a The New York Times op-ed, suggesting that Jewish genius is innate to culture instead of biology, which led to an editor's note apologizing for even using the study.^[26][11][27] Adam Shapiro has argued that while praising Jewish genius may seem to combat antisemitism, Stephens was actually attempting to co-opt White supremacy ideals by using race science.^[28] Shapiro and other commentators also argue that using intelligence tests to divide and describe specific ethnic groups, even when to prove superiority of one group, is still linked to eugenics.^[28][29]

A controversial paper published in 2019 claimed that a Jewish sample had higher polygenic scores for educational attainment and cognitive ability than other religious groups.^[30][31]

According to Evan Charney, this and similar studies fall prey to the same methodological fallacies as earlier candidate gene studies, which were "studying pure noise".^[31]

This study was further rebutted by researchers who showed that the Jewish genotypic advantage is far greater than predicted by the phenotypic advantage.^[32] The relatively invariant nature of polygenic scores cannot account for changes in Jewish intellectual achievement over time.^[33]

Bret Stephens has opined in The New York Times that the intellectual rigor of religious studies, especially in the context of constant upheaval, has allowed intellectual flexibility.^[26] Malcolm Gladwell similarly argues in Outliers that the rigorous Talmud schools may foster intellectualism and perseverance in Jewish students.^[34]

Some have argued that the elevation of Jewish intelligence based on both biology or sociology may feed into model minority myths that harm both Jewish and black peoples.^[11] Sander Gilman has argued that racializing intelligence is particularly problematic for Jews as it may feed into multiple antisemitic tropes and other categorization of a vast group of people.^[25] Gilman also argued that pointing out identity when attributing success is only helpful for tribalism, and does nothing to point out social situations that allow such success to occur.^[25] Matt Yglesias has written that the idea is used to legitimise scientific racism, including that the idea that Black people in particular are genetically inferior.^[11]

• Ashkenormativity
• Philosemitism
• Racism in Jewish communities

• Sander Gilman Smart Jews: The Construction of the Image of Jewish Superior Intelligence, University of Nebraska Press 1997 ISBN 978-0-803-27069-5