Jews and Nobel Awards

Nobel Winners Who are Jews

“Nobel Prizes have been awarded to 887 individuals, of whom 195 were people of Jewish descent, although people of Jewish descent comprise less than 0.2% of the world's population. As of 2013, people of Jewish descent constituted 41% of economics, 28% of medicine, 26% of physics, 19% of chemistry, 13% of literature and 9% of all peace awards.”

   When I found out that the current winner of the Nobel-equivalent in Economics was Jewish (he doesn’t look Jewish!), I decided to do a minimal amount of research. The lines above tell you what I found. Pretty astonishing. I don’t talk much about it, but I am very aware of who is and isn’t Jewish. It’s built into my heritage, having spent the first dozen years of my life in a Germany that became Nazi when I was in third grade.

   I’ve thought a lot, really a lot, about what is the cause of this special status (and it is that), but have never come up with a satisfactory answer. I still think about it, but I no longer have what it takes to deal with the issue in a scholarly fashion..

   Somebody, somewhere may have plausible answers. But I’ll let others dig them up. Let me hear from you.