The editor-publisher of an English-Jewish weekly published here has criticized the editors of a number of other Jewish weeklies for rejecting a suggestion by the British author and physicist, C.P. Snow, that outstanding Jewish achievement in many fields might be attributable to a superior genetic endowment.
Philip Slomovitz, of the Detroit Jewish News, accepts Lord Snow’s thesis as “truth.” He chided its critics for being “jittery” and “frightened by the gene pool compliments” and urged Lord Snow not to be “upset by the critics.” According to Mr. Slomovitz, “If there is a disproportionate performance of Jewish superiority–as there undoubtedly is–it is the result of a challenge, of the need to overcome difficulties, of rising above the degradations to which our people have been subjected through the ages… That is why the Jew rose above his environment. That’s why the gene produced so well.”
Editors of English-Jewish weeklies published in Boston, Cleveland and Newark, N.J., however, saw in Lord Snow’s theory the elements of a potentially dangerous doctrine of racial superiority which could make Jews complacent. They attributed the excellence of Jewish performance to ambition, hard work, closely knit families and a tradition of learning. One editor maintained that the “challenge-and-response” theory promulgated by the British historian Arnold Toynbee was a more likely explanation of Jewish achievement than Lord Snow’s gene pool thesis. There is no scientific evidence that environmental factors affect human genes.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
