Science and the Jews
Feb 24, 2005
Two events reported in this paper over recent weeks bring to mind that old joke about the guest lecturer in the Russian War College who tells the alarmed class of officers that Russia will have to fight in World War Three. Finally one officer asks, "But Comrade General, we are 150 million people and they are about 1.5 billion. How can we possibly win?" "Well," replies the general." In modern war, it's not quantity but quality that's the key. For example, in the Middle East, 5 million Jews fight against 50 million Arabs and the Jews have been the winners every time. " But sir," asks the panicky officers, "Do we have enough Jews?"
We learned in an AP dispatch by Matt Surman that Germany is celebrating the centennial of Albert Einstein's theory of relativity. The so-called" Einstein Year of 2005" is being marked with tours, a scientific conference and a major exhibit of this scientist and popular cult figure. But the centennial has evidently catalyzed some troubled musing by German leaders on how to keep its brightest , like Einstein, from leaving and moving to greener pastures.
Prime Minister Gerhard Schroeder, (no relation to this writer who is married to scientist and Einstein-enthusiast Gerald Schroeder) urged German's "to follow Einstein's example" and emphasize "the enormous opportunities in scientific and technical advancement without losing sight of the risks." Here's a tip: The Germans don't need a commission to figure out how they lost their scientific leadership. According to Jean Medawar and David's Pyke's book by the inspired title Hitler's Gift, Jews made up one percent of the German population from 1901-1932, the year before Hitler came to power, but they won 25 percent of the Nobel Prizes awarded to Germans or scientists working in Germany. In the days before Hitler's rise to power, Germany's venerable Gottingen University was such an international meeting place of great minds that American Robert Oppenheimer, to become the father of the atomic bomb, came there like a pilgrim after he graduated from Harvard to do his PhD under Max Born. Of the 33 staff of the Gottingen physics and mathematical institutes, only 11 remained after German laws restricted Jewish employment. Even Enrico Fermi, whose wife was Jewish, abandoned his home continent because of the Germans. Many of these Jewish physicists would meet again in a previously unknown mesa in Northern New Mexico called Los Alamos. Their extraordinary brainpower combined with their intimate knowledge of the diabolic potential of the enemy�made them ideal recruits for the Allies.
I find it strange that Germany should be treating Einstein as a beloved native son when for most of his years in Germany he lived under threat. Einstein, already a world famous celebrity ,was at Caltech in Pasadena, California when Hitler was made Chancellor of Germany on January 30, 1933. "Good news from Einstein�he's not coming back," ran the Berlin headline. Nonetheless, he was indeed on his way to Hamburg when he learned that his summer home was searched. . He disembarked in Antwerp, and soon afterwards renounced his German citizenship. To describe the departure of its brightest scientists as a typical "brain drain" misses the point.
Interestingly, at the same time that Germany is now worrying about a lack of scientists, across the Atlantic ocean at Harvard University in Cambridge Massachusetts, Lawrence H. Summers the man who holds the most prestigious educational position in the world, has similar concerns. The President of Harvard University created a ruckus by speculating that women were not entering science because of innate inferiority in this area. He has set up a committee to study the paucity of women scientists.. I urge these scholars not to overlook the theories of Dr. Leonard Sax, director of the National Association for Single Sex Public Education, who recently revealed interesting facts in New York Jewish Week. Dr. Sax noted that girls who attend all-girls high schools where science classes are geared to female study style, are six times more likely than girls from co-ed schools to major in fields like physics, chemistry and mathematics . Those who attend all-women's colleges. are have far more likely to earn doctorates in science and math. Where are such girls to be found considering that all public schools and most private schools now are coed? If you put two and two together, it seems if Harvard wants to increase its women science students, recruiters should be dispatched to Orthodox girls high school. According to Mr. Sax of the 11 women who have won a Nobel Prize in the natural sciences, five are indeed Jewish women who were educated in all-girls educational settings.
Now here's an area where we Israelis have an advantage. As we struggle with the newest round of educational reforms, also the result of our own investigative commission, let us remember that we're a land where we are blessed with an abundance of Jews and separate-gender schooling. If we want to compete in the global economy, maybe we're putting our eggs in the wrong centrifuge.
