What experts advise states, Jews have been holding for millennia

The author is an analyst at the INESS Institute.

Once again, the Jews cannot feel safe in the Western world. Almost a century after the Holocaust, the frequency of open threats, the labeling of David’s stars, and even physical attacks against the Jewish community increase in the public space.

From a historical point of view, this is nothing new. Anti -Semitism has deep historical roots that reach up to ancient Greece and Rome. Subsequently, even in the Middle Ages, accusations, persecution, confiscation of property, forced converting and anti -Jewish pogroms regularly appeared.

For example, in the 13th century the Jews were expelled from France and England. In the next century they faced accusation and pogromo during the spread of the black plague pandemic. In the 15th century they were expelled of Spanish and Portugal Ao centuries later also from German cities and regions.

One of the sources of anti -Semitism was the public misunderstood the relative economic success of the Jewish minority. She has historically worked in highly qualified professions with higher incomes. This has been suspected of part of the public, and addicted and hatred and hatred more economically heavier times.

In the past, the Jews were used as a scapegoat in times of social, economic and political unrest. And the socio-economic success of the Jewish minority has so far been a source of conspiracy theories on Jewish conspiracy and control of financial institutions or even the whole economic system.

Growth and Development Prerequisites

As we will show in this article, these interpretations are irrational. Economic science can explain the sources of Jewish success by standard economic theory.

Specifically, there are two culturally conditional factors of Judaism. The first is high investments in human capital, which was manifested as an internalized norm of the importance of education and early care of the newborn.

The second factor is institutional support for cooperation and trade, which was crucial in the past, when it was not the standard of providing the services of law and order. The Jewish religious institutions thus led to a reduction in the transaction costs associated with the creation of ex ante trust and ex post by enforcing contracts.

These two factors have created predispositions for Jews to work in highly qualified professions and life in cities. In economic theory, these are two important prerequisites for economic growth and development, which are usually recommended to whole countries as reform proposals: creation of jobs with high added value and the importance of urbanization.

Historically, Jews have applied these recommendations of economic theory thanks to the cultural and historical aspects of their religion for centuries to millennia. The result was their economic-social success in life in the majority population.

From ritual victims to read torah

« Make your main profession from the Torah Studio. » Shammai, year 10 BC

« The number of stories and chronicles was immense. Paul Johnson, the history of the Jewish nation

Most people know about the monotheistic character of the Jewish faith. Yahhva was the first great God to reject the existence of all the other gods and usurped a monopoly over the unearthly world.

Less is widespread awareness of the second important cultural innovation of the Jewish faith in the form of an emphasis on holy books.

There were various rituals, temple worship and victims in the center of ancient religions and pagan faith. All of this originally formed an important part of the Jewish faith. But over the centuries of cultural evolution, they have gradually lost their importance and replaced their Torah and its study.

The Jews have become people’s books. And these ancient religious changes had long -lasting consequences for their education. To understand later achievements in economic and social life is therefore necessary you are zoom in them genesis.

The first flipping of the Jewish faith in favor of Scripture occurred in the 6th century BC, when the Babylonian Empire conquered Jerusalem, destroyed the first temple of the Jews and dragged them into captivity.

In this way, the Jewish faith had to be firmly tied to the temple and sacrifices to reorient their liturgical activity into the dwellings and to read the holy books that became the main connector with God. This created an innovation in the form of a synagogue.

After the liberation of Cyrus from the Persian Empire, the Jews returned to Israel and in Jerusalem built a second temple. And the joint public reading of Torah, which was under the exclusive control of the high priests before Babylonian captivity, has already remained an important aspect of the Jewish faith.

The second evolutionary jump Due to the importance of education in Judaism, it occurred in the first century AD. At that time in Israeli There were several Jewish groups that had a common core of faith, but competed in various secondary aspects.

The lead group was the Sadduci, who were among the local elite. Its members were high priests, aristocrats and merchants whose power and wealth were associated with the existence of the temple. They managed worship, rituals and sacrifices that took place in it. It was the cult of the temple.

Another important group was the Pharisees, who were associated with the second pillar of the Jewish faith, Torah. Their cult emphasized decentralization (God is present everywhere and can be worshiped outside the temple) and education (worship, study and preaching of God’s laws from Torah is the main mission of the Jews).

For this reason, they founded and developed synagogues and emphasized the importance of education. Pharisees also included the priest Joshua Ben Gamla, who in 63 published a religious edict, Takkanah, requiring every Jewish father to send his son between six and seven years to school, where he was to learn to read Hebrew and then study Torah.

In this competitive environment of various Jewish groups with various cultural variants, an external factor in the form of Romans was affected in the second half of the first century. In 70, they suppressed the Jewish uprising and leveled the second temple with the earth.

In this way, they drank a group of sedations from power and wealth, whose influence was tied to local sacrifices and rituals. On the contrary, the Pharisees who did not participate in the Romans revolt, survived massacres and gained political and religious power in the Jewish community.

Thanks to the destruction of the temple, the « cultural mutation » of Jewishry based on education was underwent by the « narrow throat » of the cultural selection and became a dominant feature of all Jews.

In this way, together with other unsuccessful revolt, from 132 to 135, the destruction of the Israeli state and the Jews diaspora into the world, rabbi Judaism, which placed emphasis on education, was born into the world.

The role of the traditional father of a Jew, who saved all year to go to the pilgrimage to the second temple and invested his savings in the sacrifice of the animal on the altar, has turned into a new role of the father of a Jew who attends a local synagogue where he discusses the Torah with Rabbi and saves to invest sources in his children’s education.

Cumulation of cultural innovations in education

« Education of children is the main concern among the Jews. » Flavius ​​Josephus

« On behalf of Rabbi Zeasha, it was said that there was a elementary school in every synagogue. » Megillah, Jerusalem Talmud

Turning the rudder of the cultural evolution from the temple towards the Torah triggered the avalanche of other cultural crutches that supported the expansion of the literacy of the Jews. For example, see it in a gradual change in the meaning of some words.

The originally derogatory term « am ha -aretz le-mezvot » was used for Jews who did not respect the norms of ritual purity, but at the 2 to 3 centuries the Jews began to be labeled who could not read and did not even learn their children.

Thus, illiterate Jews became outrages in their communities and had to face penalties. They could not vote for local judges, were not invited to the common celebrations, and the daughters’ fathers were warned to marry their daughters for the sons of illiterate fathers.

The famous rabbi from the second century wrote that the man is obliged to thank God every day for three blessings. One of them was that it was not done by am Ha -aretz (illiterate).

Another clever cultural innovation motivated the Jews not to save on investments in education. The Jews believed that God predetermined the size of their annual family budget every year.

But according to the interpretations of the then scholars at that time, the expenditure on the celebration of Sabat, various holidays and, above all, the expenses for the education of children, did not count on this god. If the Jews spent more on these goals, their total income adequately increased.

The key educational innovation has proved to be the synagogue. You researchers They refer to as « the greatest practical success of the Jewish people ». In addition to religious, social, judicial and community tasks, the synagogues also performed an educational and research role.

Schools for Jews in Diaspora often originated and worked within the synagogue and were financed either by local taxes or direct fees of parents. Synagogues can establish and lead any Jew in Judaism, not to be a priest like Christianity.

Historians agree that between the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD, the basic education among the Jews expanded very quickly and in the 4th century it became practically universal for boys.

In one recorded dialogue of two Jewish scholars from the second half of the 4th century, one asks: « Is it possible to find someone without basic education? » What he got the answer to: « Yes, it is possible for a person who was kidnapped by the non -Jews. »

Thus, during the first centuries of AD, an exclusive club has become a Jewishism that laid unique requirements to their members. They had to become literate, study sacred texts and send their children to schools.

Education as a goal, not a means

« The Jew, although he would be poor if he had ten sons, would send them all to school, not for profit, as Christians do, but to understand God’s law – and not only his sons, but also daughters. » A quote from the 12th century by a student of the French scholastic philosopher Petr Abelard.

The Jews became the first literate nation in the illiterate world. And the next 1500 years, at the level and extension of education, no one has approached them. They have gained a significant comparative advantage in the world of trade and crafts.

It should be stressed that it was not the intention of the Jews themselves, Yahweh, or any reformer with a vision. It was the right combination of specific cultural variants in a certain historical context – evolutionary coincidence.

In history, there may have been several religious cults that came with monotheism, or which had holy books, or from which God required to send children to school, or which were driven and their temples destroyed. But it seems that only in the case of the Jews all these factors have combined together.

It was also confirmed by the fact that it was not a plan with the intention of the intention, but by chance that the education of children was a net cost of children during the first 600 years of the first 600 years.

The literate Jews did not fit into the then economic system requiring manual work lessons. Individual investment in education brought return only in the posthumous life.

Since the beginning of our era, up to the 6th century, the vast majority of Jews worked in agriculture. Education thus had at least practical use. His aim was for a teenage boy to stand in front of the local community and read Torah in Hebrew, and their colloquial language was often Greek, Latin or Aramaic.

The emphasis on education and holy books was a pure cargo from the perspective of individual Jews, but from the perspective of the cultural entity of Judaism, this was a key element. Without it, the Jewish nation in Diaspora would dissolve among all other ethnicities, nations and religions.

The existence of holy books played in Judaism the role of a common ancestor, a cultural DNA that maintained the stability of Jewish culture over time. And her inheritance – intergenerational replication between the heads – ensured the requirement to teach children to read and write. Education played the role of cultural sealant, which maintained the stability of Judaism over time and space without the existence of the common territory, colloquial language and government.

Historian Nathan Morris expressed it as follows: « Religion, economy, politics, all of which played its role in Jewish history, but we will never get to the core of this story unless we realize that the school was the greatest independent factor in Jewish life, which its meaning has equaled to all others together.

The article is taken over from the author’s blog.