The gene drain
LETTERS
From Dr Israel Shahak, Geoffrey Somerset' Dame Ngaio Marsh, Mrs Elfrida EstcoUri. P. 1. Wilde. Dr N. R. Sengupta, Sir Frederic Bennett, MP, Graham E. Hubbard, Katharine. M. R. Kenyon, Dr E. Kennedy Holland, John A. Yates, E.M.B.
Sir: I see that two of your contributors, Peter J. Sinith and Sir Denis Brogan (18 April), devote their articles to consideration of Lord Snow's theory about the supposed genetic superiority of Jews as established by their scientific achievement.
This theory, in my opinion, is completely false, on a historical and not 'general' basis. The importance of Jews in science is a very recent phenomenon, dating from the end of the last century. Even in the• broader field of culture Jewish participation begins at the very end of the eighteenth century. Before this there is only one name: Spinoza.
Mare significant is the fact that all the great Jewish figures of the modern times were rebels against that form of Orthodox Judaisin preva- lent till recently: Indeed, it is not an exaggera- tion to assert that had the Jewish Orthodox authorities the same power during the last 150 years as they had before, they would - either execute or break down all the great Jews of modern times (like Marx, Einstein, Fretid). As late as 1756 in Lvov '(Lemberg), a Jew, whose sin was riditig a horse and smoking a pipe on the Sabbath, was executed by orders of the town rabbi (with the kind permission of the a rChbishop).
There is, in fact, a very simple explanation for the modern achievement of so many Jews; an explanation that•was asserted by Herodotus (Book V, 78) to explain the Athenian ex- cellence. 'Athens proved,' he says. 'how noble a thing freedom is . . . when freedom was won; then every man amongst them longed to dis- tinguish himself.' It is important to perceive that this freedom had to be won not only against outside oppression, but even more against a cramped, superstitious and oppressive orthodoxy at home. Or using Professor Pop- per's terms: passing into an open society from a particularly 'closed one is an exhilarating process. Most of the achievements of the human spirit were formed during such times;
Israel Shahak 2 Burtenura Street, Jerusalem, Israel
PS: In passing, let me add that Lord Snow appears to know less about Jewish and scien- tific history than historians about thermo- dynamics.
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