JOKER23

Actually, my grandparents left Italy because of persecution, so no I don't wish bad things to happen to jews or for them to be persecuted.

spark09223

High median IQ level does not necessarily mean better academic performance. A kid who has high IQ has more potential to perform well academically, but there has to be some nurture involved. Even a kid with a 200 IQ will most likely not be able to perform well if s/he didn't have at least some support (not necessarily from his/her parents).

With that said, the Jewish culture has lots to do with why Jewish students do well at school. As already mentioned, it places strong emphasis on hard work. Same goes with Asian culture. As an Asian, I can vouch for that.

rjkofnovi

"I meant to say that before jewish people were persecuted because they were very hostile towards other religions (there are many exceptions, like jews in morocco.)"

What is the above supposed to mean? Do you have any idea what you're talking about?

JOKER23

For example the greeks and romans where very open about religion, they tried to to assimilate with jews but jews where for the most part hostile. In contrast, the egyptians and romans frequently exchanged ideas about religion. In Morocco though there was a large jewish population, here both jews and muslims lived in perfect harmony (other examples:Palestine, Iran.) Please don't take this bad, like I said my grandparents are victims of persecution and racism.

ghostbuster

if you added up all the numbers of Jewish students going to these prestigious colleges then you would get a skewed number of total jewish people in the united states.

I sincerely doubt the stats posted by the OP. Yale at 40% jewish students? Come on. The admissions committee is not that biased for God's sake. And pity the poor jewish kids who dont have uber stats? many dont even go to college, but work in small family businesses or such.

There are obviously some schools that will have high jewish percentages because there are large jewish communities in New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Cleveland, Chicago, Los Angeles, Phoenix...and yes, even in New Orleans. But they still represent only about, what?, two percent of the total US population? (we have the highest number of jews in the world at 6 million inhabitants, or 38% of total jews in the world, according to the State Dept.).

There are jewish students at every Catholic University in the United States, notably all the Jesuit colleges, and Villanova and Providence College and Notre Dame, even.

Jewish people know where their students will be accepted socially and likely thrive academically. Whether that is Syracuse University or NYU or Brandeis or Tulane makes no difference to me.

The biggest surprise to me was the claim that Yeshiva was not more than 90% Jewish. Perhaps that was lowered by their graduate programs, law school and med school.

ghostbuster

and Joker:

The British Mandate of Palestine, before World War II, had both muslims, christians and Jews living in relative harmony.....but the real turmoil began in the early 1920's when the jewish zealots came (not indigenous palestinian jews) from Europe and Russia, and who taught that "Israel" was land given to them by God and exclusively for them, and thus the Christians and Muslims should be driven out. Thus started the internecine war....which culminated in open civil war in the late 1940's. Since that time christians have fled in record numbers (and fled neighboring states as well), muslims have been at war with Israel. You can draw your own conclusions. I support the Holy Land, but lament that the relative harmony between muslims, jews and christians before the arrival of the zealotry can not be returned. Many mistakes were made by many parties, including the British. (See Lawrence of Arabia). Its just a tragic history.

And yes, the Showa (Holocaust) is perhaps the most tragic history of all.

rjkofnovi

The above statements by Joker and Ghostbuster are too laughable to even comment on. So I will just end this discussion now.

ghostbuster

you can laugh all you want. I am just stating the facts. Unless you find the Holocaust laughable.

collegebound41

collegehelp: i know plenty of twins who are opposites on the scale of intelligence, intelligence really has like 5% to do with genetics. its 70% upbringing and parental view on education and then 25% on the kid...anyway thats what i think lol genetics=not 50%

bonanza

Ghostbuster---I take issue with your history. I would agree that Jews and Arabs lived in relative harmony in Palestine before World War I under the Ottoman Turks. The reason was simple--they both hated the Turks. While the Turks were Muslim--they generally looked down upon the local Arab population which, incidentally, at the time mostly described themselves as Syrian, not Palestinian. the Turks were also more than willing to sell land to the Jews, which angered the local Arabs.

The discord had its genesis during World War I--when the British wanted help from the local Palestinian population to defeat the Ottomans, who were allied with Germany. To garner Jewish support, the British promulgated the Balfour Declaration--which promised support for the re-establishment of a Jewish Homeland in Palestine. This thrilled Palestinian Jews, but angered the Arabs--who were themselves looking to re-create an Arab Caliphate based in Mecca which would have encompassed all of Arabia, and what today is known as Iraq, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon. The British, who were notoriously dishonest about foreign affairs, made promises to the Hashemites (Abdullah and his son Feisal) which led them to believe that their dreams would be realized (this is where T.E. Lawrence comes in). The British also promised the French that France would control Syria and Lebanon. Basically, the British made conflicting promises to everybody.

I believe that the current conflict was caused by British perfidy much more than religious zealotry. Frankly, the vast majority of both Jews and Arabs living in the area are not all that religious. That remains true today. During the British Mandate, the British illegally (i.e., without League of Nations authority) divided Palestine--creating the country of Transjordan (today, Jordan) and giving it to the Hashemites--who still control it today.

Pulverizer353

Are Jews considered a minority?

spark09223

On a completely unrelated note @JOKER and rjkofnovi.

Being a Jew is NOT A RACE. I know that the US Court ruled that Jews are a race for the purpose of anti-discrimination laws, etc, etc. But race refers to people with shared ancestry and shared genetic characteristics. As an Asian, I could never be black. Being a Jew is different.

JOKER23

@spark, I know that's why in my previous post I said no one even know what a "jew" is. I think the reason people think of themselves as jews is because of all the discrimination they suffered, you know the same way a group of kids would join together if they were threathen at school.

rjkofnovi

All jews agree that a jew is someone who practices Judaism in accordance with orthodox law. It's not that complicated.

JOKER23

rjkofnovi ur ignorance amazes me. LOL