why do think so, I don't get itOriginally Posted by I can't think of a name
The Tel Aviv Cluster
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/12/opinion/12brooks.htmlJews are a famously accomplished group. They make up 0.2 percent of the world population, but 54 percent of the world chess champions, 27 percent of the Nobel physics laureates and 31 percent of the medicine laureates.
Jews make up 2 percent of the U.S. population, but 21 percent of the Ivy League student bodies, 26 percent of the Kennedy Center honorees, 37 percent of the Academy Award-winning directors, 38 percent of those on a recent Business Week list of leading philanthropists, 51 percent of the Pulitzer Prize winners for nonfiction.
In his book, “The Golden Age of Jewish Achievement,” Steven L. Pease lists some of the explanations people have given for this record of achievement. The Jewish faith encourages a belief in progress and personal accountability. It is learning-based, not rite-based.
Most Jews gave up or were forced to give up farming in the Middle Ages; their descendants have been living off of their wits ever since. They have often migrated, with a migrant’s ambition and drive. They have congregated around global crossroads and have benefited from the creative tension endemic in such places.
No single explanation can account for the record of Jewish achievement. The odd thing is that Israel has not traditionally been strongest where the Jews in the Diaspora were strongest. Instead of research and commerce, Israelis were forced to devote their energies to fighting and politics.
Milton Friedman used to joke that Israel disproved every Jewish stereotype. People used to think Jews were good cooks, good economic managers and bad soldiers; Israel proved them wrong.
But that has changed. Benjamin Netanyahu’s economic reforms, the arrival of a million Russian immigrants and the stagnation of the peace process have produced a historic shift. The most resourceful Israelis are going into technology and commerce, not politics. This has had a desultory effect on the nation’s public life, but an invigorating one on its economy.
Tel Aviv has become one of the world’s foremost entrepreneurial hot spots. Israel has more high-tech start-ups per capita than any other nation on earth, by far. It leads the world in civilian research-and-development spending per capita. It ranks second behind the U.S. in the number of companies listed on the Nasdaq. Israel, with seven million people, attracts as much venture capital as France and Germany combined.
As Dan Senor and Saul Singer write in “Start-Up Nation: The Story of Israel’s Economic Miracle,” Israel now has a classic innovation cluster, a place where tech obsessives work in close proximity and feed off each other’s ideas.
Because of the strength of the economy, Israel has weathered the global recession reasonably well. The government did not have to bail out its banks or set off an explosion in short-term spending. Instead, it used the crisis to solidify the economy’s long-term future by investing in research and development and infrastructure, raising some consumption taxes, promising to cut other taxes in the medium to long term. Analysts at Barclays write that Israel is “the strongest recovery story” in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
Israel’s technological success is the fruition of the Zionist dream. The country was not founded so stray settlers could sit among thousands of angry Palestinians in Hebron. It was founded so Jews would have a safe place to come together and create things for the world.
This shift in the Israeli identity has long-term implications. Netanyahu preaches the optimistic view: that Israel will become the Hong Kong of the Middle East, with economic benefits spilling over into the Arab world. And, in fact, there are strands of evidence to support that view in places like the West Bank and Jordan.
But it’s more likely that Israel’s economic leap forward will widen the gap between it and its neighbors. All the countries in the region talk about encouraging innovation. Some oil-rich states spend billions trying to build science centers. But places like Silicon Valley and Tel Aviv are created by a confluence of cultural forces, not money. The surrounding nations do not have the tradition of free intellectual exchange and technical creativity.
For example, between 1980 and 2000, Egyptians registered 77 patents in the U.S. Saudis registered 171. Israelis registered 7,652.
The tech boom also creates a new vulnerability. As Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic has argued, these innovators are the most mobile people on earth. To destroy Israel’s economy, Iran doesn’t actually have to lob a nuclear weapon into the country. It just has to foment enough instability so the entrepreneurs decide they had better move to Palo Alto, where many of them already have contacts and homes. American Jews used to keep a foothold in Israel in case things got bad here. Now Israelis keep a foothold in the U.S.
During a decade of grim foreboding, Israel has become an astonishing success story, but also a highly mobile one.
I think he has it backwards on the American versus Israel passport angle.
why do think so, I don't get it
Rah rah gefilte fish.
I do too.
At any rate, Start Up Nation is interesting, and I did also enjoy the rah-rah Israel stuff too
It's amazing that jews are only 0.2% of the world and they won in 25%(or something around that)of the Noble Prizes.
It's amazing what an amount of bullshit one user can produce. You and Yuda must be two dumbest and loudest motherfvckers on this forum, JUST SHUT THE FVCK UP, already!!!
American Jews keeping a foothold in Israel in case things got bad in the US? That does sound a little over the top.American Jews used to keep a foothold in Israel in case things got bad here. Now Israelis keep a foothold in the U.S.
As for the rest of the statistics provided by the article, good for those great minds, and good for Israel.
Well, "bad" as in 1939 Germany bad, and if you think that cannot happen, well... think again cause if history ever taught jewish people anything is that unless they have a place of their own, they just as well might change their last name to Dreyfus collectively if you know what I mean.
Bad as in "Germany 1939 bad", in the US, after WW2? No, really, it does sound over the top.
As for changing their names to Dreyfus, it seems that life in Israel has incurred considerably more risks than life in the US, between wars and terrorism.
Today, and for the forseeable future, yes, I agree it is over the top to fear viable and powerful political anti-Semitism in the US. Indeed, as long as the Constitution is retained as the founding political principle in the US, such a fear is not realistic. And without the Constitution as its foundation, the US becomes something else.
So maybe it is fair to say that at some future point, Jews living in the geographic region currently known as the US may yet fear virulent political anti-Semitism as was manifest in Nazi Germany.
QFT.
I think MP.net needs a 72 hour moratorium on Israel/Jewish posts, and a 72 day one on Israel will attack Iran will attack Israel ones.
QFT back to you. I'd suggest that mods start treating these threads like the Balkan ones.
Oh no ... I'd have like only 20 posts if Israel and Judaism were not topics du jour ...
I am not sure that this article shouldn't be classified as propaganda. First, the idea behind Israel is definitely not just that " Jews would have a safe place to come together and create things for the world." The numbers presented by this article may also be a bit misleading. For example, that Israel would "with seven million people, attracts as much venture capital as France and Germany combined" is not necessarily as great as it sounds, depending on what you mean with "venture captial". As far as the statistics about the many Jewish Nobel laureates are concerned, well, yes, they are true - but how many of them were Israelis? If you take a look, you find out that most of them were Americans or (shall I say it?) Germans and Austrians. Finally, this comparision about the number of US patents Israel registered - for whatever that is worth. I took a look at this site: http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/ac/...af/cst_all.htm and according to it, Israel registered 17178 US patents up to December 2008. That is very good and certainly much better than Egypt or Saudi Arabia. But in the same time, Britain registered 99760, Germany 261638 and Japan a whooping 718729! These nations have a far larger population than Israel, you say? True, but take Sweden, which with 9 million inhabitants is very much playing in Israels league: it racked up 34783 US patents, double as many as the Israeli superbrains. Nothing against Netanyahus dreams of turning Israel into the Near East's Hong Kong (although he might consider to be a bit more careful what to wish for), but the article above has too much a of a Chosen People ring to it for my taste. With all due respects for the achievement of Jews in the past - Israel cannot take all credit for this, just like that. I am saying that as a Christian, and therefore as member of the one group of people which has made by far the most scientific discoveries, created most of the greatest artworks, and racked up virtually all great discoveries from discovering America and colonizing Australia to walking on the moon. I try not to let it go to my head, if you promise the same.
Well, it was that cuckoo bastard Charlie Manson's plan to instigate civil war in the USA between African-Americans and the rest on basis of racial tensions. And don't tell me there aren't any, I lived in states for 4 years (California). Also, having come back to Israel from states I can only speak for myself but I feel its safer here, paradox-ly as it may sound. Granted, I live in the center of the country, even though during Cast Lead there was one Grad that fell some 200 meters from where I live, but on day to day basis, I feel better about living here than in the deepest Silicon Valley suburbia. This is not to get down on the US, which is a great country which I love to visit, it's just my place is here, on this soap box smack in the middle of the world
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