{"id":70348,"date":"2013-05-04T13:23:34","date_gmt":"2013-05-04T13:23:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=70348"},"modified":"2013-05-14T07:17:55","modified_gmt":"2013-05-14T07:17:55","slug":"jewish-wealth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=70348","title":{"rendered":"Jewish Wealth"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

Israel Shamir — shamireaders May 4, 2013<\/h1>\n

Americans can learn much from Israel. In Israel, you can write openly about one of the more interesting and important subjects of our era: Jewish wealth. For instance, the Israeli-American centrist think tank <\/span>Jewish People Policy I<\/span>nstitute<\/span><\/a> reported in 20<\/span>10<\/span><\/a>: \u201cWorld Jewry today is at a historical zenith of absolute wealth creation.\u201d<\/h5>\n
Forbes Israel<\/em>, the Tel Aviv offshoot of the American business magazine, has a cover story on Jewish <\/span>billionaires<\/span><\/a>. The Israeli edition has made up a list, drawn from Forbes<\/em>\u2018s overall ranking of the world\u2019s 1,426 billionaires, of the 165 richest Jews in<\/span> the world<\/span><\/a>.<\/h5>\n
\u201cPer capita, Jews are a little over 100 times more likely to become billionaires than the rest of the human race.\u201d<\/h5>\n
The billionaire on the cover is cosmetics heir Ronald<\/span> Lauder<\/span><\/a>, president of the World Jewish Congress. His $3.6 billion makes him, according to Forbes Israel<\/em>, the world\u2019s 69th richest Jew. (By the way, Lauder has one of those rare New York City concealed-carry <\/span>permits<\/span><\/a>.)<\/h5>\n
In America, this just isn\u2019t done in the mainstream media, even though it\u2019s obvious and fairly easy to do.<\/h5>\n
Sure, Forbes<\/em> has been publishing its rankings of rich people for three decades.<\/h5>\n
Moreover, counting by ethnicity is something that the government, corporations, and foundations have been doing assiduously since the late 1960s.<\/h5>\n
And these days, it\u2019s easy to look up most well-known individuals\u2019 ethnicity on the Internet. Wikipedia, for example, usually states the subject\u2019s ancestry immediately after the table of contents. (That reflects a major change in our culture\u2019s emphasis. At bedtime, I often browse in my 1971 edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica<\/em>. Biographical entries back then were quite reticent about ethnic backgrounds.)<\/h5>\n
Still, there\u2019s one <\/span>ethnicity<\/span><\/a> that\u2019s never counted in polite circles in America\u2026except by <\/span>other <\/span><\/span>Jews<\/span><\/a>, who do it constantl<\/span>y<\/span><\/a>.<\/h5>\n
You can use Google Translate to convert the Forbes Israel<\/em> richest Jews rankin<\/span>g<\/span><\/a> from Hebrew into awkward-but-adequate English. Thus, \u201c165 billionaires [sic] Jews constitute 11% of global billionaires list, and common wealth reaches $812 billion,\u201d or an average of $4.9 billion per Jewish billionaire.<\/h5>\n
Jews are usually said to comprise about 0.2% of the world\u2019s population, so 11% of the world\u2019s billionaires means they\u2019re doing pretty well.<\/h5>\n
Here\u2019s my count of Forbes Israel<\/em>\u2018s list, with Jewish billionaires as a fraction of the country\u2019s total number of billionaires:<\/h5>\n
US 105\/442 = 24%
\nIsrael 16\/16 = 100%
\nRussia 12\/99 = 12%
\nCanada 6\/29 = 21%
\nBrazil 6\/45 = 13%
\nUK 5\/37 = 14%
\nUkraine 3\/10 = 30%
\nMonaco 3\/3 = 100%
\nAustralia 3\/22 = 14%
\nSpain 2\/20 = 10%
\nFrance 2\/24 = 8%
\nGermany 1\/58 = 2%
\nHong Kong 1\/39 = 3%<\/h5>\n
According to Forbes Israel<\/em>, the ten richest Jews are Oracle magnate Larry <\/span><\/span>Ellison<\/span><\/a>, New York Mayor Michael<\/span> Bloomberg<\/span><\/a>, casino king Sheldon <\/span>Adelson<\/span><\/a>, Russian-American Google guy <\/span>Sergey<\/span> Brin<\/span><\/a>, other Google guy Larry<\/span> Page<\/span><\/a>, corporate raider Carl<\/span> Icahn<\/span><\/a>, Hungarian-American money trader George<\/span> Soros<\/span><\/a>, Russian oligarch Mikhail <\/span><\/span>Fridman<\/span><\/a>, Russian-American tycoon Len <\/span>Blavatnik<\/span><\/a>, and Lebanese-Brazilian banker <\/span>Joseph<\/span> Safra<\/span><\/a>.<\/h5>\n
Page\u2019s conclusion brings up an obvious question: Who is a Jew? Generally, non-rabbinical Jewish organizations, such as Forbes Israel<\/em>, tend to attribute Jewishness generously to individuals perceived as good guys, such as the popular Page. In turn, it\u2019s common to quibble when the topic is anybody who isn\u2019t popular. (Thus, you\u2019ll often see it argued that, say, Einstein was obviously Jewish despite not being religious, while Trotsky can\u2019t be considered Jewish because he was not religious.)<\/h5>\n
In the odd case of Page, we know that his mother came from a Zionist household and had moved to Israel, but the background of his father, the late computer-science professor Carl Victor Page, is obscure. A Google search reveals only that his paternal grandfather had been an autoworke<\/span>r<\/span><\/a> and labor activist, and that his father despised religion.<\/h5>\n
The Page family seemed to have cherished an old-fashioned socialist belief that in the future, ancestry would no longer matter. Ironically, the wife of Page\u2019s partner Brin, <\/span>Anne <\/span>Wojcicki<\/span><\/a>, cofounded that quintessential 21st-century company 23and<\/span>Me<\/span><\/a>, which offers DNA testing for genealogy enthusiasts.<\/h5>\n
The true problem with Forbes Israel<\/em>\u2018s list is neither ideological nor ethical. Instead, it\u2019s a slapdash affair with poor quality control. Forbes Israel<\/em> palpably undercounts the number of American Jews on the Forbes 400<\/em><\/span> list<\/span><\/a> of the richest Americans. (In 2012, it took a minimum net worth of $1.1 billion to make the 400<\/em>, so everyone on the Forbes 400<\/em> is a billionaire, but a few hard-up billionaires with only $1.0 billion didn\u2019t make the Forbes 400<\/em>.)<\/h5>\n
The highest quality analysis of the Forbes 400<\/em> <\/span><\/span>list<\/span><\/a> <\/span>by ethnicity is the one updated periodically by human-sciences blogger n\/a<\/em> at his race\/history\/evolution<\/span> notes<\/span><\/em><\/a> website.<\/h5>\n
To check which of the competing lists is more accurate, I\u2019ve searched the first 21 names on which n\/a<\/em> and Forbes Israel<\/em> disagree.<\/h5>\n
In one case, Forbes Israel<\/em> categorizes as Jewish a man who appears to be a WASP, cable TV sultan <\/span>Amos Barr Hostetter<\/span> Jr<\/span>.<\/a>, while n\/a<\/em> rightly classifies him as Northwestern European.<\/h5>\n
The other 20 disagreements consist of Forbes<\/em> billionaires left off the Forbes Israel<\/em> list that n\/a<\/em> denotes as Jewish.<\/h5>\n
I rapidly found that for 16 of those 20, n\/a<\/em> has a slam-dunk case based on readily accessible online evidence. For example, the Wikipedia article on former American Enterprise Institute chairman Bruce <\/span>Kovner<\/span><\/a> ($4.3 billion) states: \u201cKovner was born into a Russian Jewish family.\u2026\u201d<\/h5>\n
Two of the disputed 20, Orange County real-estate baron Donald<\/span> Bren<\/span><\/a> and Indianapolis Colts owner James<\/span> Irsay<\/span><\/a>, are the product of mixed marriages.<\/h5>\n
That leaves only two of n\/a<\/em>\u2018s 20 whom I couldn\u2019t easily document: banker Bernard Saul II and Miami TV station owner Edmund<\/span> Ansin<\/span><\/a>. The first has a stereotypical Jewish name, while the second is a relatively rare name that has left me stumped. Ansin\u2019s father is said to be an immigrant from Ukraine who opened a shoe factory in Worcester, MA.<\/h5>\n
In general, I found that n\/a<\/em>\u2018s accuracy is better by far.<\/h5>\n
Overall, n\/a<\/em> states that 140 of the Forbes 400<\/em> rankings of richest Americans, or 35 <\/span>percent<\/span><\/a>, are Jewish.<\/h5>\n
Perhaps that 35 percent figure is slightly overstated by fully counting individuals of mixed backgrounds, such as Microsoft CEO Steve <\/span>Ballmer<\/span><\/a>. Then again, n\/a<\/em> may be missing a roughly similar number of non-Jewish names of billionaires who are a half or a quarter Jewish in their mother\u2019s lines, so it may all balance out.<\/h5>\n
In general, however, the question of how to count people of partial Jewish ancestry is, no matter how fascinating in theory, still difficult at present. The current denizens of the Forbes 400<\/em> (average age <\/span>6<\/span>6<\/span><\/a><\/span>) largely come from generations when mixed marriages were fairly rare, so solving this methodological issue can reasonably be deferred for a few more years.<\/h5>\n
Jews are usually said to make up about two percent of the US population and perhaps three percent of the older generation that dominates the Forbes 400<\/em>. Therefore, Jews are roughly 17 times more likely per capita to make the Forbes 400<\/em> than is the rest of the American population.<\/h5>\n
This 35 percent Jewish figure has been fairly stable since n\/a<\/em> started his analyses in 2009. The first careful analysis of the Forbes 400<\/em> was performed by <\/span>Nathaniel<\/span> Weyl<\/span><\/a> <\/span>back in 1987, when he found <\/span>23 <\/span>percent<\/span><\/a> were Jewish. That suggests a sizable increase in Jewish representation among plutocrats over the last generation. Yet bear in mind that\u2019s only one data point from the past. I\u2019ve been casually following the Forbes 400<\/em> for 30 years, and membership shifts frequently due to various bubbles.<\/h5>\n
n\/a<\/em> has also done a quick and dirty look at Forbes<\/em>\u2018s global list of 1,426 b<\/span>illionaires<\/span><\/a> (#1, by the way, is Lebanese-Mexican Carlos<\/span> Slim<\/span><\/a>). Unlike Forbes Israel<\/em>\u2018s estimate of 11 percent Jewish, n\/a<\/em> comes up with over <\/span>17 <\/span><\/span>percent<\/span><\/a>. Note that this is pretty much of a <\/span>SWA<\/span>G<\/span><\/a> for Eastern Europe, where it\u2019s harder for an Anglophone to look up biographical information. Still, this estimate would mean that per capita, Jews are a little over 100 times more likely to become billionaires than the rest of the human race.<\/h5>\n
In summary, as an Israeli might tell you, an informed opinion is better than an uninformed one. <\/span><\/h5>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

America can learn much from Israel, not least when it comes to ethnicity and wealth. Israel Shamir explains<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":102,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[61,66,37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-70348","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-Commentary","category-Economics","category-Israel_Anti-Semitism_Zionism_and_US-UK_allies"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70348","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/102"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=70348"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70348\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":70993,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70348\/revisions\/70993"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=70348"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=70348"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=70348"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}