Jewish Weeklies Reject Lord Snow’s Theory of Jewish Genetic Superiority

Three leading English-Jewish weeklies have rejected a suggestion made by the British writer and physicist C. P. Snow that the outstanding performance of Jews in most fields of human endeavor might be attributed to a genetically superior endowment. Lord Snow delivered his remarks in an address at the founders day exercises of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion here. He cited as one basis for this theory the disproportionate number of Jews on the roster of Nobel Prize winners.

The Jewish News of Newark, N.J., observed in an editorial that “claims based on race or blood lines generally rely on and project stereotypes” that have been “damaging sociologically as well as unprovable scientifically. Until Lord Snow can back up his theory with hard facts, we prefer to attribute the success of individual Jews to old fashioned hard work inspired by a host of objective factors related to home and social environment,” the paper said.

The Jewish Advocate of Boston said, “Lord Snow would do well to rely on Toynbee’s ‘Challenge-response’ historical theory rather than on quite absurd speculations about gene-pools. For we fear that all this has a narcotic effect on many Jews leading them to identify with the great men of the past and present, without themselves contributing to the store of the world’s wisdom.” The theory proposed by the British historian Arnold Toynebee in his “Survey of History” is that most civilizations developed and rose in response to the challenge of severe environmental or sociological adversities. The Cleveland Jewish News said in an editorial, “We thank Professor Snow for his tribute, if that’s what it is, but we believe him to be on the wrong track. It is neither inbreeding over the centuries, as he surmises, or even the precious tradition of Jewish learning. It is simply and starkly, that Iron Maiden of Jewish life, the Jewish Mother.”