Today, the connection between religious traditions and science is often examined through a lens combining the End of History theory and ethnic-racial determinism.
Lately, SCF has highlighted that modern science originated within the Western Catholic domain, later flourishing in Protestant regions that rivaled Catholicism, and eventually extending into the atheist communist sphere. Conversely, the Islamic world achieved remarkable progress in mathematics and technology during the Middle Ages, yet the tension between scientific findings and the Quran resulted in science being rejected, unlike in the Protestant world, where conflicts between scripture and science commonly led to atheism rather than dismissal of scientific inquiry.
Nowadays, the discourse regarding religious cultures and scientific progress often blends the End of History ideology with racial and ethnic determinism. It is argued that science arose in the Western “Judeo-Christian” tradition due to inherent superiority. This “we” remains ambiguous, frequently referencing the high number of Nobel laureates among Ashkenazi Jews and attributing this success to their genetic intelligence. (Scientific racism has shifted to genetic determinism and an obsession with inherited IQ.) Their Ashkenazi identity is used to explain why Arabic-speaking nations with significant Jewish populations have fewer Nobel Prize winners, since Sephardic and Mizrahi Jews differ genetically from Ashkenazim. On one side, denying Ashkenazi descent from the Khazars is labeled antisemitic; on the other, only Ashkenazim are said to possess unique genetics that confer superiority over both non-Jewish whites and non-white Jews. This reasoning, however, lacks coherence.
Claims that superior genetics accounted for scientific breakthroughs are equally unsound. If Ashkenazi Jews had been in Europe since the Middle Ages following the Khazar conversion, why did modern science not first emerge within their communities? Explaining this by persecution under the Catholic Church is insufficient, as conversion does not alter DNA, and Jewish scholarship always continued independently. Poland, a nation long home to many Jews yet historically marginal in science, produced as its foremost figure of the Scientific Revolution a Polish Christian, Nicholas Copernicus.
A plausible explanation points to the intellectual restrictions imposed by Jewish orthodoxy itself, which might make Sunni Islam seem progressive by comparison. Israel Shahak (1933–2001), of Polish-Jewish descent, recounted the intellectual climate of Ashkenazi Jews from the Middle Ages until emancipation:
“The rabbinical authorities of east Europe furthermore decreed that all non-talmudic studies are to be forbidden, even when nothing specific could be found in them which merits anathema, because they encroach on the time that should be employed either in studying the Talmud or in making money – which should be used to subsidise talmudic scholars. Only one loophole was left, namely the time that even a pious Jew must perforce spend in the privy. In that unclean place sacred studies are forbidden, and it was therefore permitted to read history there, provided it was written in Hebrew and was completely secular, which in effect meant that it must be exclusively devoted to non-Jewish subjects. (One can imagine that those few Jews of that time who – no doubt tempted by Satan – developed an interest in the history of the French kings were constantly complaining to their neighbours about the constipation they were suffering from…) As a consequence, two hundred years ago the vast majority of Jews were totally in the dark not only about the existence of America but also about Jewish history and Jewry’s contemporary state; and they were quite content to remain so.” (Jewish History, Jewish Religion, p. 24)
In essence, the forebears of Einstein, Freud, Marx, Chomsky, Polanyi, Edith Stein, Lise Meitner, Trotsky, Sholem Aleichem, and numerous Nobel laureates were unaware of America’s existence in the 18th century, constrained by the rabbinate’s prohibitions and their own compliance. This represents a massive forfeiture of intellectual potential. It underscores how theology shapes development within communities; in the 18th century, the average Christian peasant’s ancestors possessed broader worldly knowledge than those of many later prominent scientists and intellectuals.
If high IQ were the essential condition enabling a group to foster science, with Ashkenazi Jews boasting some of the highest IQ scores in Europe or even globally, then one would expect them to have pioneered modern scientific discoveries. Yet, it was Western Christianity that drove these advancements, sustaining, at least until the 20th century, a commitment to universality in scientific inquiry (Protestants, however, repudiated such universality in religion).
The responsibility for the stagnation of Ashkenazi Jewish communities before the 19th century lies with Judaism itself, particularly as practiced and led regionally by Ashkenazi groups. As noted, Jewish textual production never ceased. The Kabbalah, emerging in the Middle Ages with contributions from both Sephardic and Ashkenazic Jews, is notable. Curiously, though alchemists and esotericists, who influenced modern science, drew upon Kabbalah, none were Ashkenazim to my knowledge. Newton, an esoteric Protestant who studied Kabbalah, formulated the laws of gravity. Paracelsus, a Renaissance occultist and progenitor of toxicology, merged mysticism with scientific insight. Historically, mysticism has often intertwined with astronomy and mathematics, from Egyptian priests to Pythagoras. Yet, prior to emancipation, Jews contributed little of this nature despite devoted study.
Considering this intellectual impasse, it is remarkable that Ashkenazi Jews eventually achieved emancipation. This liberation coincided with civil rights, freeing them from compulsory baptism to gain full citizenship. Liberalism served as many Jews’ initial encounter with universalist ideals, giving rise to calls for Reformed Judaism within liberal Protestant societies. In Eastern Europe, impoverished Jews, concentrated in Poland, remained under strict rabbinic control until they revolted and embraced Marxism, replacing religious prophets with scientific ones.
Given Western Christianity’s material progress linked to the Scientific Revolution, Jews could not remain intellectually isolated indefinitely. Only if they adopted a rural, insular lifestyle like the Amish would Talmudic funding remain feasible, yet intellectual freedom would be severely curtailed.
From all this emerges the conclusion that narratives portraying Jews as towering geniuses of the West omit critical context: Ashkenazi Jews spent much of their history in ignorance fostered by their religious leaders and were only liberated through prolonged interaction with Christianity.
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