Why Are Jews Preeminent in Science and Scholarship?: The Veblen Thesis Reconsidered

Relatively little of the Jewish preeminence in science and scholarship can be explained by the Veblen thesis that their marginality fostered in Jews a greater capacity for detachment. Veblen ignored the cultural circumstances of communal Jewry, including literacy, and failed to deal at all with the Jews' economic position. The weaknesses of the Veblen's thesis becomes especially apparent when we study the most intellectually successful Jewish community in the history of the Diaspora, that in the United States during the eight decades since Veblen wrote. The question of the intellectual preeminence of Jews needs to be emancipated from the parochial approach Veblen brought to it. It should be studied in relation to other cases of Jewish over-representation, including the world of finance and the leadership of the Bolshevik Revolution. The separation of the study of Jewish Nobel Prize winners from other cases of Jewish prominence has mystified the question of Jewish intellectual preeminence. This question should be demystified and treated methodologically like any other topic in history and sociology.