(Mirror.)

Oh man, this is awful. Admittedly I do occasionally impute positive traits to Jewish cultures, like resilience, a ‘Maccabean spirit’, and a good sense of humor (you are free to argue that even these modest compliments are still uncomfortably othering), but this? This is unacceptable. This is basically taking almost everything that a neofascist gentile says about Jews and inverting those demonizations to be romanticizations. Look at this:

Allied to this inherent Jewish intellectual prowess, Gilder discerns a distinctly Jewish “culture of mind” emanating from within Judaism itself. It fosters the go-getting entrepreneurial spirit that is the essential basis of capitalism.

Ugh.

In this post-Oct. 7 reshaped edition of his classic book The Israel Test, George Gilder’s central thesis is confirmed and strengthened.

He firmly believes that the Jewish people nurture within themselves an intellect that is both a gift and a goad for the rest of the world.

This makes absolutely no sense. The failure to predict the October 7th operation was such a catastrophic fuck up that it might have been intentional, but if it were accidental then it would do nothing to advance the ‘smart Jew’ stereotype.

Moreover, the IOF are grossly incompetent. The Electronic Intifada publishes videos every week providing evidence that the Palestinian resistance is kicking the IOF’s asses; the Palestinian resistance is vastly more sophisticated in spite of its comparatively low budget. The IOF use living shields, take photographs of theirselves wearing stolen women’s clothes, upload videos of theirselves committing war crimes, repeatedly expose theirselves to sniper fire and traps, and there is no sign of a Zionist victory after nearly one year. The IOF are good at killing civilians as well as taking out their infrastructure and that’s fucking it.

Gilder points out that the proportion of people with an IQ of 140 or more is about six times higher among Jews than any other population.

Taking I.Q. seriously in the 2020s is cringeworthy.

He cites the extraordinary fact that Jews, forming much less than a single percent of the world’s population, have won 32% of the Nobel Prizes awarded in the 21st century.

I wouldn’t brag about receiving something given to Henry Kissinger.

Today, he says, “an outsized share of the world’s genius resides in Israel,” which has become a center of innovation.

Oh, you mean like the Iron Dome? You know, that thing that was supposed to defend your crappy little neocolony against Iranian missiles?

“The source of antisemitism,” Gilder believes, “is Jewish superiority and excellence.”

No, the source of antisemitism is economic competition, something that capitalists loathe: antisemitism is useful to capitalist gentiles because it can scare away petty bourgeois and lower‐class Jews, thereby reducing competition (or at least potential competition), and it can justify worse wages or fewer benefits for lower‐class Jews.

Capitalists can also manipulate lower‐class gentiles into thinking that antisemitism is fine because it must mean ‘more jobs’ for gentiles (and fewer for Jews). Antisemitism can also distract gentiles from capitalism’s structural defects, but I suspect that this function is secondary.

Yes, it may be true that Jewish cultures tend to encourage knowledge, learning, and sophistication, but there is a danger to taking the ‘smart Jew’ stereotype too seriously, since it probably encourages some Jews to overperform and meet societal expectations when they just want to be ordinary. Besides, intelligence is subjective. Is fretting over it worthwhile?