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Exploring The "Smart" Gene

Dry Bones

SENSITIVITY

ometimes, Jews are so smart that it's sicken-
ing. Literally. That at least is the suggestion
of a team of University of Utah researchers
who think they have found a common genetic rea-
son for why Ashkenazic Jews seem to be dispropor-
tionately well-endowed in brains and simultaneously
at high risk for four diseases — Tay-Sachs,
Niemann-Pick, Gaucher, and mucolipidosis type IV.
What's new in this is not the fact that Ashkenazic
Jews measure at the way high end of smart; Jews
make up 3 percent of the American population but
are more than a quarter of its Nobel laureates and,
the researchers note, more than half of the chess
champions in the world. Nor is it new that they are
in special danger from these four diseases.
The startling hypothesis being put forth
by the Utah team is that intelligence is
inheritable and, further, that it arose
among Eastern European Jews by the Darwinian
process of natural selection. Because the
Ashkenazim were barred for nearly a thousand years
from a broad range of agricultural or manufacturing
activities, they had to survive by brainwork. The
"fittest" survivors were not the strongest or swiftest,
but the smartest, the researchers say. The mutations
that encouraged greater activity in the brain were
helped along by limiting the gene pool; Jews mar-
ried Jews.
The team takes as its strongest evidence the fact
that the four Ashkenazic diseases arise in the same
biochemical pathway and are related to cellular
activity that promotes development of the brain
cells. The downside risk of disease is an unfortunate

byproduct of the need to get smart, they contend.
While medieval Jews might have been cheered
by the research, modern Jews have reasons to be
skeptical and slightly fearful of this sort of genetic
research. We remember where the Nazis took the
notions of eugenics and superior races. Given the
vast range of measured intelligence among people
with very different lineages, with every racial and
ethnic group producing both dullards and genius-
es, the argument of heredity seems a bit hollow.
Still, we have to grapple with the fact that
among Northern Europeans in general, four of
every thousand test as having an I.Q. over 140
while the figure for Ashkenazic Jews is almost six
times higher, 23 per thousand.
Traditionally, we have held with nur-
ture rather than nature as the explana-
tion for intellectual achievement. We
expect parents to challenge their children to think,
to read, to play music and chess and to demand
good schools where teachers continue that chal-
lenge. Maintaining the cultural standard of hon-
oring brainwork encourages the kids to exercise
the gray matter. Where does that leave us if smarts
is simply genetic?
In the end of course, what counts is not so
much what you inherit as what you do with it. If
we are a chosen people, it is a commandment for
setting moral examples, not intellectual ones. So it
is a matter of taste as to whether having a "smart
gene" is cause for celebration or lament.
What the heck. You've got a good mind. You
think about it. ❑

Art Of Travel

must have seemed like a good idea at the
Some of the grave markers in the Heilige
time. The hotel where I was staying, in
Sand ("Holy Sands") are 950 years old. We
Hammamet, was the site of a 30th reunion
wandered through, not fully understanding
by some veterans of Rommel's Afrika Korps.
what we were seeing, but marveling at this
I needed to get away from that, so I took a
vast city of the long-ago dead.
bus into Tunis. I found a bench in a pleasant
Just as we were leaving, an elderly man
park and sat down to take in the scene. A
entered the cemetery. He were no yarmulke
young man spotted me and asked if he could
or any other sign of being observant in such
try out his English on such an obvious
a place. But he spoke excellent English and
GEORGE
American.
insisted on taking us around the cemetery
CANTOR
We spoke for several minutes, and then he
again, telling us stories associated with many
Columnist
went into a tirade about Israel. He watched
of the graves and those who were
my face, and then asked: "Are you Jewish?"
buried there.
When I nodded, his mood changed.
"This was a rabbi who was forcibly
"You should know that it is insupportable for
baptized," he said. "He told the priest, 'The
Arab men that Israel exists," he said. Then he
greatest waste of water you can imagine is
resumed our previously inconsequential chat, shook
water poured into the Rhine, water poured
my hand, thanked me for talking to him and
into good wine and the water you pour
walked away.
over me.' So they killed him."
I have pondered that conversation, especially his
He went on for a good half hour. It was one of
use of the odd word 'insupportable,' for years. Such
the most memorable tours I've ever taken, and even
a friendly young man to me, yet so vehement in his
better because it was so unexpected.
hatred of a Jewish ideal, hundreds of miles away. I
Years later, I learned that this cemetery had been
wonder if he ever acted on that hatred.
protected and restored mostly through the efforts of
Travel ideally should take you out of yourself and
one local Christian historian. I've often wondered if
open you to a wider world. I'm glad I took these
that was the man.
trips. ❑
In 1972, I traveled to Tunisia. I forget why, but it

S

EDIT ORIAL

W

hen I was a travel writer many years ago,
I quickly learned the difference between
travel and tourism.
Tourism is a packaged commodity: a cruise, a
resort, an all-inclusive tour. It promises to make
even the most distant places seem familiar. Tourism
also buys ads in the newspaper.
Travel is a highly personal experience that leaves one
open to surprise. It is unscripted, spontaneous. It can
make even the nearest places seem exotic.
And it buys no ads. Only memories.
In 1977, I traveled to the town of
Worms, in Germany. I was on a driving
trip with my brother and a friend and we
decided to spend the night in this place
on the Rhine.
Worms was a center of Jewish scholarship, the
home of Rashi, one of the great figures of the
medieval era. Many of its old streets, especially the
Judengasse, are beautifully preserved. It also has the
oldest Jewish cemetery in Europe.

RESEARCHERS CLAIM
THAT JEWISH GENETIC
DISEASES ARE THE
RESULT OF

JEWISH BREEDING
FOR SUPERIOR
INTELLIGENCE.

7

THEY'RE SAYING
THAT JEWS ARE
"TOO SMART FOR
THEIR OWN GOOD!"

www.mrdrybones.com

REAL ITT
CBE CE

George Cantor's e-mail address is
gcantor@thejewishnews.com .

gni'

6/ 9

2005

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