Jewish Lives Matter

Now for something you never asked for!  Something politically incorrect!  At ninety and with less to lose ….. I’m speaking my mind!

Now, I’ve said it! I’ve said the thing that many Jews believe in their hearts but will never say out loud. Most every ethnic group will say the same thing about themselves, sometimes publicly. Jews don’t express these things out loud, firstly, because it is not polite, secondly, because we don’t welcome the attention when we are so often under attack, and, primarily, because we do not publicly want to admit our belief that our particular group deserves some priority because of our positive performance.

Of course, the Black Lives mantra is a reaction to the unjustified treatment Blacks have been exposed to historically. But isn’t that true for Jews as well? Don’t we know that Jews are the ones that suffer to the greatest extent from reported incidents of all kinds of attacks? And that’s not counting all the incidents that are not labelled for what they really are. And how many Holocausts have Jews suffered over the centuries of their dispersion? But when was the time that there were public demonstrations with signs proclaiming Jewish lives matter?

NEVER!

And look around you! Who does your favorite group of protesters hate the most?

But to the distress of my Jewish co-religionists, I will go even further. Jewish lives not only matter, but they matter more. Why? They matter more because, like it or not, their existence contributes more in total to the public good out of all proportion, (Jews make up 0.7 per cent of the world population, ) compared with the contributions of other peoples. Wow! That statement will set the cat loose among the pigeons!

 Through assimilation and forced conversion, (most Jews converted to Christianity after their dispersion from Israel in ancient times,) Jews have been integrated into the general population in incalculable numbers through intermarriage. We could prove that through generalized DNA testing. We cannot without great effort identify there what contributions Jews have made to the public good, but, where Jews have retained their identity, such things can be evaluated with some accuracy.

We need only examine the rise of known Jews to positions of prominence in the West when they began to leave the ghettoes as Middle Age restrictions began to disappear. We have heard stories of Jews rising to positions of importance even in the Middle East in spite of religious intolerance in that region. We can examine the public record in America and even in Europe, particularly in pre-Hitler Europe. It is no secret that even before these times, Jews were valued as immigrants to help stimulate economic activity in moribund economies.

There are plenty of nay-sayers, and some of them are Jews.*And rising antisemitism and Islamic revanchism, (forever retaliating for lost territories,) signal their own response.  (Shall I mention Gaza, where Hamas kills their own to make a political point. While accusing Jews of genocide, they hide their activities under hospitals, schools and mosques to discourage Israel attacks. They steal civilian’s food and accuse Jews of starving children. They kill those who would tell the truth. But the facts, if one would listen, speak for themselves. It was the Jews who for generations supplied the people of Gaza with power, food, water and jobs. (The Hamas answer was October 7^th.)

We can look around us in North America, where there was less opposition to Jewish integration than in Europe, and count the record of successful Jews in business, the sciences, education, medicine and even entertainment. Their contribution here, as elsewhere, has been out there out of all proportion to Jewish numbers in the population. In the wider world, the Nobel prizes speak for themselves. And just remember Jesus, Freud, Einstein, Salk-Sabin and Pfizer.

What shall we make of what we have seen come out of the national rebirth of a sovereign Jewish state? Beginning its life almost stillborn as the armies of seven Arab countries mass-attacked its borders, Israel didn’t have any country rally round. It stood alone and paid the bloody price of victory. And it more than tripled its population, taking in Holocaust remnants and homeless refugees, at great cost, in the midst of its battle for survival.

Casting off stultifying socialism, and in spite of a strangling bureaucracy, deep divisions on religious grounds, many of its Arab population opposing its existence, facing  a constant terrorist threat, it has achieved a per capita domestic product which is among the highest in the world. Lacking natural resources, it has built its economy on the technological achievements of its best and brightest. Latterly, it has shown it is a people that will bitterly fight to retain its democracy, as so many have not.

It invests the world’s highest percentage of its budget, (lately, except for China,) every year in research and development. Few countries exceed it in the number of new patents registered each year. Its research has permitted the crippled to walk, the deaf to hear and the blind to see. It provides devices that produce water out of the air for those without water. It has invented devices that conserve water for dry country irrigation. It produces drinking water from sea water on a grand scale and exports it to its neighbors. It has learned to recycle water in the country (seven times) before discarding it.(Fresh water is only a small fraction of the world’s available water.) There are unheard of innovations in the medical field that are rescueing the lives of untold numbers of people.

Constantly threatened militarily, it has produced effective anti-missile defense systems for population centers, for airplanes, ships, and for military vehicles. It is constantly upgrading the quality of its military engines and its intelligence capabilities. Its company start-ups are launched on the world’s exchanges and are being purchased by corporate buyers every month. The U.S. invests billions in its technology and receives many times its investment back as savings to the U.S. taxpayer every year. And one thing more! There is something that those who might want to attack Jews should know. The world has changed, and such attackers will pay a bitter price for such actions, wherever they are!

We do not know exactly what it is that is the origin of this comparative out-performance. Maybe there is an element of survival of the fittest at work. Maybe it is the cultural imperative to strive for educational attainment (present in most Jewish families,) that yields benefits. Maybe it comes from centuries of belief in a common destiny that has driven Jews to a sense of responsibility for the well-being of their fellows. That has metamorphosed into an interest in service to humanity as a whole on the part of many Jews in the health sciences. Maybe it is the tradition of persistence in the face of obstacles knowing that we often have not had a choice but to keep trying when we faced obstacles to our survival? Who knows?

What I do believe is that humanity can benefit from a precious resource for the world’s common good, the existence of the Jews. Doesn’t logic dictate that one wants more of what produces positives? It has been interesting to note that a number of Arab countries, formerly sworn enemies, have signed the Abraham Accords so they can draw some of the benefits available from this resource. Others are lining up.

*Y.N. Harari, 21 Lessons for the 21^st Century