Smart Jews, The Construction of the Image of Jewish Superior Intelligence (review)

THE JEWISHQUARTERLYREVIEW,XCII, Nos. 1-2 (July-October, 2001) 180-181 SANDERL. GILMAN.Smart Jews, The Construction of the Image of Jewish SuperiorIntelligence. Lincoln and London:The University of Nebraska Press, 1996. Pp. 246. Those familiar with SanderGilman'sconsiderableoeuvre know what to expect from this small book about a large topic: a sure-handedgrasp of Freudandrelatedtexts in the historyof psychology, plus a telling use of literary vignettes and other episodes from popular culture, engagingly presented with verve and wit, used to describe an episode in the history of stereotyping.The book originatedin a 1994 series of lectures delivered at the University of Nebraska in the midst of the Murray-Herrenstein Bell Curvecontroversy.At this momentthatdatedcontext breathesthe airof ancient history since in 2001 the heirs of Murray-Herrenstein andtheirilk no longer attributepoverty and anti-social behavior to inheritedculture (and biological?) deficiencies of intellect but to the insufficiency of testing in schools. Political fads do fade fast! Gilman'sessay skewers the arguments of Murray-Herrenstein et al. By focusing on what they supposed to be the top half of the curve, the Jews, he demonstrateshow evanescently inconsistent and contradictorythe basis is for any such judgments. The "smart Jews"of one era,the Sefardimin 19th-centuryGermanJewish culture,have become the "dumbJews"in late 20th-centuryIsraeli society. The defective criminalJews of the Lower East Side at the turnof the centurybecame the geniuses of City College in the 1930s. This is not a topic that has inspiredmuch creative insight or researchin contemporaryJewish studies since, among otherreasons,it cuts too close to the neurosesof the field andthe egos of its exponents.Nor does Gilmanfor all his commandof theneglectedquondamsciences of intelligenceandracial psychology attemptto probedeeply enoughto solve its mysteries.Although he scoffs at it repeatedly,he neverdoes establishwhy anyoneshouldassume that virtue bears any relationto intelligence. Sherlock Holmes' Prof. Moriarty has had many imitators,though he appearsonly once in the book. By problematizing"smartness," raisingthe questionof who is a Jew,andexposing the self-delusions and absurditiesof those who address the issue, he deftly avoids the simple-mindedqueries, areJews smarterand, if so, why? After all, he is concerned with image, not reality. Still despite Gilman's effortsthe issue does arousepublic curiosity and does exercise the thinking of scholars,even those who publicly ignore it. GershomScholem, inspired by a sense of antinomianhumor,once told me thatsomeone should write a history of Jewish criminals. That book has yet to be written, but isn't it abouttime to study stupidJews? Perhapsthough,the correctquestionis not GILMAN, SMART JEWS-BRAUDE 181 whetherJews aresmartor stupid,but why shouldanyonetakethe matterseriouslyenoughto care?HereagainGilmanhintsatananswer.ForChristians, Jews aretoo importantto be ignored.Since they furnishedChristianitywith a Savior, they can'tbe ordinary. Boston College BENJAMIN BRAUDE ...