How did Ashkenazi Jews become so intelligent?

edit: 7 Mar 2018

Hirsch (1926) found Jews were no more intelligent than other Americans.

A study of natio-racial mental differences

According to this 2015 paper Ashkenazi are smart because they are part Chinese! [Slight sarcasm.]

A genetic contribution from the Far East into Ashkenazi Jews via the ancient Silk Road

“The existence of some eastern Eurasian haplotypes in eastern Ashkenazi Jews supports an East Asian genetic contribution, likely from Chinese.”

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I looked the claims that 0.2% of the world won 27% of all Nobel Prizes. It is a tuly amazing figure which doesn’t stand up to much scrutiny:

1. Winners with one Jewish grandparent are counted as Jews. [They are actually Gentiles.]
2. It ignores that fact that Jews were (and still are) vastly (10-100x depending on the country) more likely than non-Jews to be scientists. On a per capita basis per Jews were/are not much more likely to win than non-Jews.

The real reason why Jews win so many Nobel prizes

Scientists and Belief

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There is very little evidence that Ashkenazi jews are highly intelligent. In fact they were considered to be below average in most professional fields (except medicine) in the 19th century.

This what the typical Ashkenazi was like 150 years ago - a poor, barely educated Eastern European peasant. Many people thought they were stupid and lazy. [The real cause was lack of opportunity.]

Modern Israel is a relatively poor country with a surprisingly mediocre K-12 education system. [The Arabs always get the blame for the poor outcomes.]

Study: Israel has greatest educational gaps in OECD

Israel places 39th in global education ranking

According to the Times Higher Education Supplement Israel doesn’t have a single Top 100 university. Switzerland has three, Hong Kong has three and Singapore has two. Even ‘anti-intellectual’ Australia has five.

Rankings

There are only three Israeli born Nobel Prize winners for science or medicine - the same as New Zealand. Switzerland - with a smaller population - has 17.

List of Nobel laureates by country - Wikipedia

I will now ask: “How did Nigerians become so intelligent?”

Data show Nigerians the most educated in the U.S.

It is possibly due to eating sweet potatoes, wearing colourful clothing and playing ampi drums.

An alternative argument is that American Nigerians are a self-selected group of ambitious people who value education. [Just like the Jews were in earlier time.]

It Isn't Just Asian Immigrants Who Thrive

The new ‘Jews’ are the highly motivated Africans, Asians, Indians and Iranians who are migrating to Western countries and becoming highly successful. It has little to do with genetics and great deal to do with hard work.

According to studies cite a variety of data about the Ashkenazim I found this: a verbal mathematical capacity = 118 ~ 125. Spatial abilities = 98 ~ 105.
Most reliable studies place the overall IQ in the 112~115 range. While individual studies put it at 107.5 and sometimes 110 .
In fact the success of the Jews goes far beyond what is expected from them. fe: Jews in Nobel prizes (most prestigious prize), Fields medal (most prestigious in math),and Turing award (most prestigious in computers) and more, are 100x times relative to their population size. In Pulitzer Prize and in Chess which they constitute about 50% of winners they are overly disproportionate by a factor of 250x. Many suggest that in music too they are in accordance with 250x. In fact, even if we assume their IQ to be 115 they have to outperform 4 times the rest of the population, in fact their overall success in science, music, law, academia, industry, banking, media is higher. Probably it can be explained by the fact that the highest IQ contributes to greater success exponentially. Meaning, an IQ in such a high level yields to an exponential success. That is, a mathematical verbal 120 IQ contributes to higher success rate ratios than what lower IQ does.

I am editing it to answer the new question. My explanation is probably due to a high value of education and literacy. While most of the world was illiterate the vast majority of the Jews were literate. That includes throughout all medieval times. . Also the idea of universal education is pretty new to the rest of the world, but far from new to the Jewish communities. Universal education for Jews can be traced back to the beginning of the first millenia (and probably it was common even a few centuries earlier) after the destruction of the second temple. YESHIVOT =Jewish universities -( Such as: 1st century BCE two main schools of Jewish thought, known as the House of Hillel and House of Shammai. Later were the Pumbedita Academy , Nehardea Academy and Sura Academy , Pum-Nahara Academy , And in the Land of Israel - Talmudic Academies in Syria Palaestina ) were established in every place of the diaspora, first in Babylon/Israel and then in the rest of the world. The higher education was highly beneficial , because it gave them the advantage of dealing with trade, medicine, astronomy and many things that were much more difficult for the illiterate person to do. By the time of course, a kind of moderate evolution prefers the schoolers , educated and wealthy Jews .

I’d say the reason is a combination between intention and circumstances.

If you look at the vast amount of Ashkenazi Jews, you’ll find following patterns:

• Jewish people have an immense sense of perseverance. Jews were historically the minority in most societies, meaning they were easy targets of discrimination and exclusion. Despite all of this, Jewish people remained a solid minority in many societies and even spread considerably from their original point in the Middle East.
• Jewish people value education. If you look at historic and recent statistics, many Ashkenazi Jews are exceptionally well educated, from early child-age to adulthood. They have gone to schools with good reputations and were usually average or above average academically. And these attitudes were passed on so were their children, and children’s children, aunts, uncles and so on.
• Jewish people tend to be very patient people, so bumping into difficulties, whether its academically or physically wasn’t a problem for them. Also, because they are patient people, Jews often accumulate vast amount of wealth slowly over generations. It may be very little added in each generation, but if you are able to keep that up for several generations, it’ll grow exponentially. And with wealth and status come connections. This is tied in with:
• Jewish people are strategic. If you look at Ashkenazi Jews, you’ll quickly realize that they are a pretty closed society, meaning as a non-Jew, it was significantly harder to get into the circle (especially if you had nothing to show for yourself) - you’ll also often find that Ashkenazi Jews often intermarry with each other. Partly due to their religion and also partly as a simple, but brilliant strategy. When a royal family in any kingdom in medieval Europe or Ancient Asia had accumulated significant amounts of wealth and power and wanted to continue to hold on to it for the next generations, they must keep it in their own hands (=own family), as blood is thicker than water back in the old days. The royals carefully and strategically chose which people they want to include in their family, so brides/husbands were chosen carefully. They want to keep the circle entitled to wealth as small as possible and as close to the core family as possible, meaning more often than not, cousin-marriage or various other incestuous elements were quite common. A similar principle can be seen with Ashkenazi Jews. Their ancestors started out with very little, each following generation got higher and higher in their social status while accumulating wealth little bit by little bit and then strategically intermarry with other Ashkenazi Jews to keep out outsiders entitled to their wealth and their societal positions; just look up the various jewish scientists and businessmen, you’ll see that all kinda knew each other over various corners and more often than not, their marriage partner was also an ashkenazi jew. Now of course, we all know that if you look at struggles in the old empires in medieval Europe and Asia, you’ll also realize that even with all these measures, problems arose within a family, husbands betraying wifes, brothers rivaling brothers, sisters/uncles/aunts plotting to take over power and kill other family members. A similar observation can be made with ashkenazi jews - you can see various different “ashkenazi jewish clans” standing on different, opposing positions during various times in history.

Marcus Boateng's answer to Why are the Jews the smartest people in the world (even smarter than the East Asians)?

They got caught up in forms of runaway social or sexual selection for cognitive ability -- which is probably what explains the origins of human intelligence even at times they went through, outright eugenics.

Babylonian Eugenics – In 586 B.C.E., Jerusalem was totally destroyed by the Babylonians, led by their monarch Nebuchadnezzar, who “carried into exile… all the [Jewish] officers and fighting men, and all the craftsmen and artisans… only the poorest people of the land were left.” (2 Kings 24:10-14) The Indestructible Jews, by Max Dimont, defines the deported people as “the flower of Judah’s aristocracy and intellectuals.”

I guess that pogroms also served as a kind of selection for intelligence.—-HBD Monk.

Their success: (This may be outdated as it said circa 2011.)
"Jewish Fields Medalists (27% of recipients)
Jewish Recipients of the Wolf Prize in Mathematics (36% of recipients)
Jewish Recipients of the Leroy P. Steele Prize for Lifetime Achievement (55% of recipients)
Jewish Recipients of the Bôcher Memorial Prize (45% of recipients)
Jewish Recipients of the Frank Nelson Cole Prizes in Algebra and Number Theory (44% of recipients)

Similarly, moving up the ladder of economic achievement, Jews have remarkable percentage increases as we move into greater percentages of elite success.

Jews, are 2% of America, but 35.75% of the Forbes 400 richest Americans list, thus Jews have a Wealth AQ of 17.88 (because 35.75/2 = 17.88).

Thus, “165 billionaires [sic] Jews constitute 11% of global billionaires list, and common wealth reaches $812 billion,” or an average of $4.9 billion per Jewish billionaire.

Jews are usually said to comprise about 0.2% of the world’s population, so 11% of the world’s billionaires means they’re doing pretty well.

Despite being 2% of America, Jews (as of 2009) are 77% of self-made decabillionaires. So we see that as we move up America’s economic ladder, from the homeless, to the general population, to billionaires, to self-made decabillionaires, we see that the percentage of lowest IQ race (blacks) goes from 45% to about 14% to 0.25% to 0% while the percentage of the highest IQ race (Jews) goes from perhaps close to 0%, to 2%, to about 36%, to 77%.—- Pumpkin Person.

Footnotes: Why is the IQ of Ashkenazi Jews so High? - twenty possible explanations

http://takimag.com/article/jewis..."— Jewish Wealth by the numbers

Ashkenazi IQ & the paradox of the breeder’s equation

Does the average self-made decabillionaire have an IQ of 150?

The Ashkenazi Jews—the Jews of Europe—began as a distinct community about 1, - Pastebin.com— How the Ashkenazi Jews got their smarts. Excerpt from 10,000 year explosion by Greg Cochran and Henry Harpending.

A Troublesome Inheritance: Genes, Race and Human History Second Printing Edition by Nicholas Wade

I wrote this as an answer to Why are Jews so successful? Key elements of it definitely answer your question as well.

I was born Jewish, am not observant, am consciously spiritual in a generalized personal growth context, but am certainly, culturally Jewish. Lets deal with this word “successful” in its most fundamental meaning first. To accomplish aims (more on that later) and to be accomplished. Any unusual financial success accruing to them as an ethnic group as a result, is not to be dismissed, but needs to be put in context. That being its secondary. What is primary then? It stems in significant part from the love of learning so intrinsic to it. It is very much a love & that is critical to note. The dedication involved takes it another plane entirely. Academic credentials were never the point alone. Many universities put quotas on Jews (especially in the prestige professions that made them too powerful for the liking of the anglo/gentile powers at be (i.e. medicine & law) right up until the late 50’s/early 60’s. It was wisdom that was/is revered - & not passive wisdom. I remember reading in the New Yorker an extremely perceptive & self satisfied intellectual giant was expounding on his views of the characteristics of many different ethnic groups (most of which he had unkind things to say often with a hint of truth). On the Jews he was inclined to give them a pass because (I’ve never forgotten the phrase): “They have a certain nimbleness of mind”. It’s a vitally important point. Known as plasticity of the mind or even genius. This last being: 1) Intuition & intuitive leaps 2) Creativity. Jews have always used both to increase the reservoir of genius we all of us possess. With passion, a depth of dedication & much curiosity. Are the Jews alone in this? Hardly. One example only. I once spoke to an educated & very bright Jamaican who told me whatever Jamaicans decide to do (on either side of the law) they tend to do brilliantly. I asked another about why this is & he replied “because we’re so adaptable”. The plasticity of the mind again, that never stops growing if it is being constantly stimulated, especially in creative ways, while vigorously visualizing one’s success. This last is also critical (medal winning Olympic athletes are all taught to do it consciously). The Jews have always had an intense passion to change the world. Not in the sense of the phrase heard by every other Silicon valley start up, to create physical change for it own sake - but for the profoundly better. The most successful people are those that did so with ideas. Einstein, Freud, Marx & Spinoza for example. The Jewishness they have in common is not accidental. It matters not a whit they may not have always been consistently observant, it was the waters they swam in as proverbial fish that shaped them from birth. Even in business creating then successfully leveraging society changing ideas was second nature to them & ever sought for. They mined their Jewishness to literally invent both Hollywood & the American dream (essentially the notion anyone could make a success of themselves in America, outsider or not - the dearest Jewish aim constantly acted out through history). It’s beautifully documented in the well regarded Documentary, Hollywoodism much shown on TV. Just watch the first, up to 3 1/2 minutes as after that it’s just clips of Jews being portrayed in Hollywood films selected from some other source >

Jewish comedy of course has deeply affected all comedy & our outlook on the world. It is the surest way to profoundly communicate. i.e. Can you imagine consistently seducing women with no laughter occurring? Exactly. Lenny Bruce almost reinvented the medium. Woody Allen & others extended this. John Stewart born Jewish, of the Daily Show is firmly in this revered tradition. One of his more famous quotes exemplifying his Jewish outlook: “If you don’t stick to your values when they’re tested, they’re not values - they’re hobbies”. Modern civil rights is not quite a Jewish phenomenon but their contribution was (perhaps an understatement) spectacular. It was not just that 40% of all black schools were completely funded by Jewish money. The major Supreme Court case of the time dramatically expanding black civil rights was dependent on massive (completely Jewish) funding of key, independent research the court relied on for its verdict. The armies of lawyers volunteering their services during the most major (& often marked by considerable police & other reactionary violence) civil rights demonstrations were 90% Jewish. This, when they were something like 1 or 2 % of the population. Jews were given the extraordinary honour of being initially treated as honourary Christians in the racist south. Which didn’t stop them from standing up for the rights of blacks in the most public & vigorous ways. Their synagogues were bombed as a result. Many. There were many more that barely evaded being bombed, being rescued at the last instant before dynamite found at many could be detonated. Sit down for this next point. This was 15 years after Auschwitz. They didn’t do it because they had nothing to lose. They had everything to lose. Bringing back some of that Warsaw uprising mindset (where they did have nothing to lose) to America. They jumped right back into the fire endangering themselves & their families, because they were damned sure they were not going to be a part of the problem of this kind of ugliness of the world they themselves (such a small % of those that lived) had escaped at such cost - but were going to be an incredibly (the right word) active part of the solution. These were no longer young men & women but well into middle age raising families. It takes my breath away every time I think of it.

There is a reason why Jewish charitable giving is so high & that according to polls mentioned in the answers by others above, 92% of it is to non Jewish organizations. Jews have been pushed around a lot & there has been a very concentrated attempt to push back in ways that underline, they are in point of fact, part of the solution & not the problem. That explains why Jewish political inclinations tend not to be celebratory of the individual in right wing ways, but almost always the community with a more left wing sensibility. People forget the one place where socialism worked brilliantly first - and has for over a century is in Israel. The Kibbutz. Founded as settlements over a century ago in the middle east on the land where Israel is today, 40 years before Israel officially came into being, they were the first Israelis and what it grew out of. They are the true soul of the country & the backbone of a strong, heartful, leftist sensibility that resulted in the founding, labor Governments Of Ben Gurion, Golda Meir & others under which Israel achieved it’s highest international respect in its entire history. The current government has unfortunately temporarily set aside the vision & accomplishments of Golda Meir & her successors. Bernie Sanders did not come out of nowhere and/or his own eccentricity.

Smaller things helped, such as the lowest rate of alcoholism of all ethnic groups or the wasp majority (Jews are introduced to watered down wine in their preteens as part of the Sabbath observed at home, resulting in the thrill of the forbidden being removed).

The extent to which the success of perhaps a larger minority in business & the professions benefited from this creative, passionate, innovative drive is hardly uninteresting, but a case of examining the trees & ignoring the totality of the forest, if concentrated on to the exclusion of the latter. I read a history text once that explained that in ancient Rome the majority of government professionals that administratively ran the city were Jewish. The reverence for applied learning is yes, an ancient story ever expressing itself. This is a group sensibility I’m describing. Individuals within it can & and often are all over the map. Some very obviously so. The Meyer Lanskys & similar. The inner, driving vision is much more what it is then not however

Jews are not more intelligent, We are however more intellectually curious than Christians, because of our religion. Christianity is a faith based religion, what counts is what you think and believe, not what you do. Since we unable to control our thoughts, Christianity promotes guilt, since just learning something new that may cause you to question your belief, is already considered a sin. This mindset, promoted by the Church (both Catholic and Orthodox) for over a millennium inhibited intellectual curiosity and creative thinking.

Judaism is different. Our religion is deed based, not faith based. As far as faith is concerned, all we are required to do is not believe in more than one God. This means a Jew can be an agnostic or an atheist without sinning, only if you renounce your faith in one God and adopt a faith that believes in multiple gods are you considered guilty of the sin of heresy (kfira). This promoted a mindset that encouraged original and creative thinking, and intellectual curiosity.

Until the Reformation, Christianity did not believe in education, in fact the opposite, Information is power, so the church wanted the ignorant masses to remain ignorant, and therefore dependent on the church and unable to criticize its teachings. Judaism is the opposite, Even since Queen Shlomtzion (Salome Alexandra circa 70 BCE), who made education compulsory in her kingdom, almost every Jewish child receives some level of education, which means our literacy rate has always been over 80%, whereas for most of history (from the Dark Ages until the Enlightenment) that was the illiteracy rate of the Christian world. Jews are not more intelligent, but for centuries our culture enabled us to use our intelligence more effectively,