{"id":2705,"date":"2020-01-07T14:22:23","date_gmt":"2020-01-07T19:22:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/lawrencefrizzell\/?p=2705"},"modified":"2022-03-23T18:02:47","modified_gmt":"2022-03-23T22:02:47","slug":"jewish-genius-in-the-new-york-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/lawrencefrizzell\/jewish-genius-in-the-new-york-times\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cJewish Genius\u201d in The New York Times<\/em>"},"content":{"rendered":"

On December 27, 2019 columnist Bret Stephens offered a reflection on \u201cThe Secrets of Jewish Genius\u201d<\/a> that received considerable attention. The Times<\/em> published a short comment with a correction but The Jewish Week<\/em> of December 31, 2019 provided a report that put the matter in a wider perspective: “Times Amends, Apologizes For Stephens Column.”<\/p>\n

On December 22, 2019 The Wall Street Journal<\/em> published Dominic Green\u2019s review of Norman Lebrecht\u2019s book, Genius and Anxiety: How Jews Changed the World, 1847-1947<\/em> (Scribner, 2019)<\/a>. Getting away from the dangerous theories of eugenics that contributed to Nazi ideology, Mr. Green has a point that is pertinent to the current discussion:<\/p>\n

There is no Jewish gene, Mr. Lebrecht argues, only Jewish genius; no \u201cJewish exceptionalism,\u201d only an exceptional situation. Jews\u2019 minds were sharpened by the hermeneutical whetstone of the Talmud, their lives perpetually threatened.\u00a0 They were conditional insiders and eternal outsiders, \u201cdriven by a need to justify their existence in a hostile environment and to do it quickly.”<\/p>\n

Probing the questions posed by Mr. Stephens requires more than a brief essay or even a book or two. May these efforts to ponder the mystery of one community\u2019s contributions to society be made with a humble and generous spirit!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On December 27, 2019 columnist Bret Stephens offered a reflection on \u201cThe Secrets of Jewish Genius\u201d that received considerable attention. The Times published a short comment with a correction but The Jewish Week of December 31, 2019 provided a report … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2011,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2705","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-miscellaneous"],"aioseo_notices":[],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/lawrencefrizzell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2705","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/lawrencefrizzell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/lawrencefrizzell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/lawrencefrizzell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2011"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/lawrencefrizzell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2705"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/lawrencefrizzell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2705\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3437,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/lawrencefrizzell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2705\/revisions\/3437"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/lawrencefrizzell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2705"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/lawrencefrizzell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2705"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/lawrencefrizzell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2705"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}