The fallacies of Jewish singularity

It's true that Jews are overrepresented in many arenas -- liberal professions, entertainment, media, medicine, arts, activism, politics, etc. Why is this? Are Jews inherently different in some key way? Is it cultural? Genetic? The product of some secret deal with the devil?

And what about the fact that there are some very high profile evil Jews? The Sacklers, Harvey Weinstein, Jeffrey Epstein. Are they confirmation that the stereotypes of Jews are true? Proof of the underlying corruption and evil of the Jewish people?

Before we dig into the fallacies, let's confirm what's true.

Based on our small numbers (Jews number about 7 million in the US, just over 2% of the total population; globally, Jews number about 16 million, or 0.2% of the world), Jews ARE overrepresented in many professions and activities. Since the industrial revolution, Jews have been overrepresented in various political and economic movements in the US and abroad: socialism, communism, labor, civil rights, free speech, back to the land, social justice, environmentalism, postmodernism, neoconservatism, free market capitalism, and, fittingly, also in both the pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian movements. We have been overrepresented in the film, TV, and music industries, in professions like law, medicine, academia, finance, education, psychiatry, and so on. This has increasingly become less true of some professions, as other ethnic groups increasingly assimilate and ascend the ladder.

By and large, we have done well in the US, and, contrary to conventional wisdom, that is not something to be ashamed of. It reflects hard work, a strong educational ethic, a powerful drive to succeed, and some key skills.

So let's dig into the fallacies:

1. Jews are more intelligent or cunning (for good or evil).

No, we are not smarter than anyone else. But we have a long history of literacy and focus on texts as part of our religious traditions, which orients us historically toward a learning and education mindset. Throughout much of our history, rabbis, scholars, and wisemen have been the role models and source for wisdom in both Jewish religion and culture. In the 19th and 20th centuries, many Jews in the Old World joined the rest of humanity in embracing modernity: leaving ethnic and religious enclaves in favor of cities, taking industrial jobs, embracing enlightenment values, and beginning to assimilate. As Jews left the insular world of tradition and scripture, they often brought their penchant for literacy, education, and ideas into the secular realm, and very often with great vigor. Many replaced religious zeal and community with Yiddish, Ladino, German, or Judeo-Arabic culture, letters, and arts; many others embraced political movements, like socialism and labor, as their new ideologies.

While the different forms of expression were as varied as any portion of humanity, there was among Jews a certain energy and ambition born of a) the need to replace religious zeal with something else, b) the need to find meaning and security when both had been lacking, c) the need to escape the poverty, persecution, and insularity of the old times for something newer, and d) a desire to fit into and survive in a world that is overwhelmingly not-Jewish and often hostile to Jews. All of these factors combined to become a major motivator for Jews leaving the community, the shetl, the village, the old country, or the old neighborhood as they sought to assimilate, find opportunity, find safety, and shed the past. Therefore, it is fair to say that many Jews have been especially driven to DO and to CHANGE, and they have a strong cultural value of EDUCATION.

2. Jews are rich.

Because of the factors named above, Jews have, gradually, over generations, succeeded in the modern world (especially the US) better than they have throughout most (if not all) of their history. They are doing relatively well economically, vis-a-vis the general population, but most Jews are not rich, and most rich people are not Jews. Moreover, some ethnic and religious groups have achieved even greater economic success in the US. Most Jews in the US are part of the broad middle class; many are working class; some are poor; some are wealthy; a small number are mega-wealthy. Nevertheless, for all of Jewish recorded history, it has only taken just one wealthy Jew in the spotlight (e.g., Baron Rothschild) for the general population to make negative assumptions about Jews and wealth. If that wealthy Jew happens to be unethical (e.g., Bernie Madoff), then the prejudiced have a field day.

3. Jews are uniquely privileged and powerful.

As many Jews in the US are doing relatively well economically, a commensurate number have ascended the social ladder through business, politics, or the professions and built the influence and power that comes with such positions. While outright racism, quotas, gentlemen's agreements and the like prevented Jews from rising in the American mainstream for generations, those walls began to break in the 1950s and '60s, and it's fair to say that Jews have joined other longstanding groups in positions of power. While bias persists, overt antisemitism has become more rare -- reserved for white supremacists and left wing radicals. But that makes Jews now part of the mainstream, not uniquely powerful or influential.

And what about their privilege?

To ascribe to Jews "white privilege" or privilege generally is to ignore 1,000 years of marginalized status, including for the first generations that came to the US. The assumption of privilege stems from a simplistic binary (via intersectionalism and critical race theory) pitting the white / European / wealthy against the non-white / poor / oppressed in a flimsy construct that posits all of the former as inherently guilty and all of the latter as inherently victimized. That takes into account none of the nuance that exists within groups and for individuals, and assumes no agency among minority groups. Jews are represented in every class and subculture, and have existed through most of their history without real political power. The emergence of a Jewish wealthy class in the US in the 20th century does not erase that.

4. Jews achieved success through shifty and nefarious means.

Jews rose through the ladder like any other immigrant group. Immigrants and their kids worked the trades they could: peddling, garment work, building, factories, boxing, crime, unskilled labor. Subsequent generations pushed hard for education and escape from hardship, and a new generation of professionals emerged intent on joining the American mainstream. A couple of generations later, and the slums are mostly a distant memory, education is a mainstay, and a visible minority of Jews have amassed significant wealth through industry, finance, real estate, business, and otherwise. The fact that the Epsteins, Madoffs, and Weinsteins exist does not mean that they are representative of the vast majority of Jews -- in wealth or ethics. They are extraordinary and shameful examples for Jews themselves.

5. Because of their relative wealth, power, and privilege, Jews are fair game for criticism and "punching up," and deserve their negative status in Western society.

We have already established that their wealth, power, and privilege are not unique, but Jews are uniquely singled out for criticism and as symbols of all that is hated in the West. Why? Existing bias (and, for some, hatred) is a big factor. Jews are also often identifiable and stick out (visible and stubborn "others"). Combine those factors with intersectionalism, as described above, and Jews are the perfect boogeymen. The perfect scapegoats for all that is wrong with American, European, or Western civilization. In this context, any Jew who proudly carries their own peoplehood is cast as the wrong kind of Jew (and often accused of any number of grievous libels: genocide, apartheid, white supremacy, settler colonialism, etc. regardless of the facts). 

If Jews are the exemplars of the ultimate privilege in the US and the West, then to hate Jews is seen as simply "punching up." This is both false and racist.

Is it good to be out of touch in 2026?

Maybe it's natural to feel less at home in the world as we get older. The world keeps changing, after all, and our ability to stay current with the various, persistent changes diminishes gradually and becomes less important. 

At 50, I don't relate to much of the youthful culture that I see. That's okay. It's not meant for me, and my alienation from it is natural and to be expected. I am fulfilling the time-honored tradition of each generation faced with the weirdness of the next generation.

What gives me pause, however, is my growing alienation from the world generally -- its politics, values, and basic assumptions. Is that a normal function of getting older? Does every generation eventually start to feel profoundly out of place in the mainstream? Maybe. And maybe others are more accepting of their fate. For me, it is hard to accept it so far, because my alienation feels somewhat sudden and violent. Less like a natural progression and more like a reaction to something ugly and all-consuming.

Has political and social change shifted more significantly in recent years than at other times throughout history? Probably not. I'm sure that the current extremes -- MAGA and Progressivism -- are natural responses to our current civilizational malaise, just as the industrial revolution, nationalism, global wars, technological advances, and social revolutions of the past 200 years yielded huge tears in the fabrics of our societies. But these shifts in 2026 are real. And they are profound.

Our new politics, of course, have evolved over many years, and the extremists on the Left (Progressives) and Right (MAGA) have grown and asserted themselves in symbiosis. Each is the necessary foil for the other, helping each camp define itself in opposition to those other extremists.

I still believe that most Americans don't belong to either camp -- maybe 10% of each side are real believers, maybe I'm undercounting -- but the majority of us who are in the middle (moderates, centrists, critical thinkers, upholders of liberalism, the nuanced, dispassionate, post-post-modernists) lack a brand, community, or political party. Therefore, our influence on the prevailing culture is greatly attenuated. On the other hand, MAGA has seized the federal government and is setting our current political course from the top; and Progressives have seized control of our institutions (academia, media, culture) and claim to have a monopoly on truth and morality as they bully the rest of us into submission.

Where do those of us who reject both sides belong? Where do we go when every piece of news is interpreted only through the lens of one's political tribe, when objective truths are dismissed by both sides? Take this week's crazy news: the US attacked Venezuela, arrested its leader, and pledged to run the country.

MAGA claims that this is about the drug trade (false) and is in response to Maduro's record of corruption, crime, and oppression of his own people (his record is real, our actions have little to do with that). The justifications are generally disingenuous: Trump campaigned on avoiding foreign entanglements and wars; Republicans criticized Obama for military actions not approved by Congress; the drug argument is weak and inconsistent (see Honduras and Mexico); and Maduro did not pose a direct threat to the US. Trump cares about oil, displays of power and regional influence, and continuing to distract Americans from reality in order to sell his brand.

Progressives pretend to care about human rights but certainly never organized against the vast human rights abuses by the socialist government of Venezuela, the Islamist regime of Iran, or any other country in recent memory, other than Democratic Israel. Social justice and human rights, it turns out, only apply when one can relegate "victim" and "oppressor" into familiar camps determined by critical theory and intersectionality: "oppressors" are always white (and especially Jews, the ultimate symbol of Western privilege and power among the haters); "victims" are almost always non-white; and non-whites are never responsible for their own sins, which are always a byproduct of oppression by the first group. 

No amount of injustice in Venezuela, Iran, Somalia, Sudan, DRC, or any where else will elicit the attention of Progressives, because there is no Western bogeyman to blame. Their worldview is built on simplistic ideology, false moral binaries, and tribal identity rather than objective facts.

Show me an American, of any age, who can talk about current events without falling into familiar Progressive or MAGA talking points, and I will bow to the possibility of a future that doesn't require hiding in cave and isolating myself from the insanity.