A chosen calling
Subtitle: Jews in science in the twentieth century
By: Noah J. Efron
Series: Medicine, science, and religion in historical context; Medicine, science, and religion in historical context
Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press; Hebrew Union College Press
Published: 2014
Language: eng
Number of pages: 149
ISBN-13: 9781421413815
Subjects: Jewish scientists; Jewish influences; Jews; Social aspects; Science; Civilization; Judaism and science; Intellectual life; History
Other titles: Jews in science in the twentieth century
Description: Scholars have struggled for decades to explain why Jews have succeeded extravagantly in modern science. A variety of controversial theories from such intellects as C. P. Snow, Norbert Wiener, and Nathaniel Weyl have been promoted. Snow hypothesized an evolved genetic predisposition to scientific success. Wiener suggested that the breeding habits of Jews sustained hereditary qualities conducive for learning. Economist and eugenicist Weyl attributed Jewish intellectual eminence to "seventeen centuries of breeding for scholars." Rejecting the idea that Jews have done well in science because of uniquely Jewish traits, Jewish brains, and Jewish habits of mind, historian of science Noah J. Efron approaches the Jewish affinity for science through the geographic and cultural circumstances of Jews who were compelled to settle in new worlds in the early twentieth century.^

Seeking relief from religious persecution, millions of Jews resettled in the United States, Palestine, and the Soviet Union, with large concentrations of settlers in New York, Tel Aviv, and Moscow. Science played a large role in the lives and livelihoods of these immigrants: it was a universal force that transcended the arbitrary Old World orders that had long ensured the exclusion of all but a few Jews from the seats of power, wealth, and public esteem. Although the three destinations were far apart geographically, the links among the communities were enduring and spirited. This shared experience of facing the future in new worlds, both physical and conceptual provided a generation of Jews with opportunities unlike any their parents and grandparents had known.^

The tumultuous recent century of Jewish history, which saw both a methodical campaign to blot out Europe's Jews and the inexorable absorption of Western Jews into the societies in which they now live, is illuminated by the place of honor science held in Jewish imaginations. Science was central to their dreams of creating new worlds - welcoming worlds - for a persecuted people. This provocative work will appeal to historians of science as well as scholars of religion, Jewish studies, and Zionism.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (pages 105-141) and index.
Table of contents: title: Preface : a vanload of rabbis in the culture wars of Kentucky; title: Introduction : "Ridiculously disproportionate"?; title: "Holding high the torch of civilization" : American Jews and twentieth-century science; title: "Second only to Communism" : making Soviet Jews and Soviet science; title: "Making a land of experiments" : science and technology in Zionist imagination and enterprise; title: Conclusion : when all worlds were new worlds.