- Are Jews rich?
First off, if you're here for crazy stuff
like lizard people and the illuminati,
you've come to the wrong place.
We're not doing the whole anti-Semitic canard
about global conspiracies thing, okay?
We're trying to ask and answer a serious question.
And it's a question with big implications.
On the one hand, the idea of Jewish wealth
is a source of great admiration,
a source of Philo-Semitism among the people of the world.
On the other hand,
Jewish wealth is exactly the kind of thing
that fuels anti-Semitism of the worst kind.
What's crazy is that a sentence like,
"Jews are leaders of industry"
or "Jews run the biggest companies",
you could easily imagine that same sentence
said by a rabid anti-Semite
and an admirer of the Jewish people.
That line between that anti- and Philo-Semitism,
it can be really hard to figure out.
Let's start by going back to basics.
Are Jews actually rich?
First off, let's just check the numbers.
For the purposes of this discussion,
we'll focus on American Jews.
According to the 2020 Pew Research Center report
on Jewish Americans, the answer is that Jews
are at least a little richer than average.
Half of all Jews surveyed reported a six-figure income,
in comparison with a third of Americans overall
who reported a similar income.
And that disparity gets wider as you move up.
A quarter of American Jews
report family incomes over $200,000,
a level that just 4% of Americans overall reach.
Before we go any further,
it should be noted that Jews are also poor.
10% of Jews live on incomes below $30,000.
In Israel, by the way,
17.7% of its Jewish population lives below the poverty line.
But clearly, Jews are also statistically overrepresented
among America's wealthy.
What is it about the Jewish people
that makes them so adept at success?
The answer, like most actual answers to complex topics,
is not so simple.
One major factor is education.
The commandments and laws of the Torah
are central to Judaism,
and Jews have been carefully reading the Torah
to follow its laws for millennia.
Well, not every Jew.
As the Jews interpreted and applied the laws,
they wrote the Mishnah, then the Talmud,
and then more and more books of law and commentaries.
To be sure, not all Jews were scholars,
but a heavy emphasis and great prestige
was placed on knowledge of the law and education.
And as a result,
virtually every time and place that Jews lived,
they tended to reach a higher level of literacy and numeracy
than the surrounding non-Jewish populations.
Now add to that urbanization.
Once the Jewish people were mostly exiled
from the land of Israel in the first and second century CE,
they congregated into villages, towns,
and later cities across the diaspora.
Why?
Well, the Jewish religion is a communal one.
A standard community would require a synagogue
within walking distance and traditionally,
a quorum of at least ten adult males for prayer.
It would need a well-maintained mikvah
for observance of purity laws;
a Rabbi to decide matters of law; a butcher for food;
a scribe for contracts and ritual texts.
In short, Jews need other Jews to properly practice Judaism.
And more than that,
there were external factors driving Jewish urbanization.
Jews in Christian Europe and the Muslim Middle East
were second-class citizens.
Rules and laws were almost always placed
on where they could live, and for political reasons,
they were often placed nearby centers of power.
These large towns were, like larger cities today,
the nexus points of knowledge, trade, and wealth.
These closely associated networks
would've spread across continents
in cities large enough to support them,
creating a natural network for trade.
Are you still with me?
Let's put it all together.
I'll say it like this.
An average Jew in 12th century Paris
could go to the market and buy wool from farmers.
He could then travel to far off Islamic Cairo
and, even in a time when Christians and Muslims
were not especially hospitable to each other,
meet with someone who spoke, wrote,
and read a similar language,
and abided by the same Jewish economic laws.
There he could sell the wool
and return with silk and spices,
along with contracts for more of the same.
In this way, Jews would have already been ahead of the curve
in establishing finance and trade routes
that would've cut out the various middlemen
required for a German or a Frenchman to do the same thing.
There's another important contributing factor
to Jewish wealth that had to do with their unique position
in Catholic society.
Early Church law, like the Jewish law,
forbade lenders from charging interest on loans
but only between Christians.
Jews were exempt from the ban on money lending,
and therefore benefited from a super ironic monopoly
that lasted for a few centuries.
Basically, they were banned from lots of jobs
but allowed to do this, and therefore they made money.
So in the 12th century,
when kings and princes needed large amounts of money
for wars and other risky ventures, they went to Jews.
Jews were so important in this role
that they had a special distinction in medieval law
as the servi camerae regis.
I have-- that's definitely not how you pronounce that.
[audio recording of pronunciation plays]
"Servants of the Royal Chamber."
Basically, they were owned by the king and the king alone.
Anyone who's studied Jewish life in the middle ages
knows it wasn't all great.
Jews may have benefited from the King's protection,
who valued their contributions to the economy
and especially their status as a source of tax revenue.
But as important as credit was
to these developing societies, Jews were always at risk
of popular peasant uprisings known as pogroms.
And those were the good times.
Major nobles in debt could stir up popular resentment
and initiate violent anti-Jewish riots
just to get out of repaying loans.
Kings who owed their Jewish subjects too much
could, and did, simply default on their loans,
kick the Jews out, and confiscate their property,
and then re-invite them after they'd used up all their funds
and needed more loans.
Sound ridiculous?
The kings of France did it.
Twice.
First in 1182, then in 1306,
before finally kicking them out for good in 1394.
So, even in those places and times
where Jews were allowed to own land,
it often proved a poor investment
if Jews were summarily expelled.
Having a skill or profession you could take with you
was often a much more valuable source of wealth.
By necessity, Jews excelled in skilled labor
and fields of knowledge like medicine and finance.
They traded in precious stones and metals
that could be easily moved.
And they developed an entrepreneurial spirit,
specializing in high-risk, high-reward ventures
and previously unknown ways of generating wealth
Again, let's be very clear here, not all Jews were rich,
and even among those wealthy few,
many who bet big lost their fortunes and often their lives.
But over the centuries, many became very wealthy,
and inevitably, they reinvested that wealth
in more education and higher standards for communal living.
By the time modern secular nation states emerged,
Jews, so long on the outside looking in,
were well-equipped to take a role
in government, academics, and finances.
And indeed many did, at significant rates.
In the free and capitalist society of early America,
Jews thrived like never before.
So, are Jews wealthy?
Statistically, yes.
While many are poor, on average, Jews are wealthier.
Why?
If you want hateful and myopic views on the matter,
check out the comment section below.
But if you want a genuinely thoughtful
and historically reasoned answer,
it's because Jews value education;
gravitate to urban environments
where economic opportunity is greater;
and have developed a culture that values entrepreneurship.
And, just one more point I want to make,
and perhaps the most important one.
We've been using terms like success and material wealth
as if they are synonymous,
but it's a comparison that loses so much
of the uniqueness of Jewish life.
The ancient Sage Ben Zoma asks, "Who is wealthy?"
and answers, "One who is happy with what one has."
The Jews didn't congregate into cities
or focus on education to become rich.
They did those things to preserve what they had:
their way of life and their Torah.
From Moses to Maimonides
to Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson,
the names that come down to us through time
are not famous merchants and moneylenders,
they're martyrs and mystics and scholars.
They're the preservers of our tradition
and the leaders of our communities.
So perhaps the greatest answer to the question,
"Why are Jews rich?" is because we define success
as so much more than just wealth.
A huge thank you to Henry Abramson
for guiding us on this video.
And if you liked this video,
or you want to learn more about Israel, or Jewish history,
or the Jewish people, check out everything on this channel,
check out "Unpacked".
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