“The Lord bless you and protect you! The Lord deal kindly and graciously with you! The Lord bestow His favor upon you and grant you peace! Thus they shall link My name with the people of Israel, and I will bless them.” (Numbers 6:22–27)
Chosen? Hated? Blessed? Yes – all of the above. God chose to bless that we may be a blessing.
As of 2020, 22.4% of Nobel laureates have been Jewish, despite Jews making up less than 0.2% of the world's population. What’s going on there? Are Jewish people privileged? Well, it would seem that the world’s most hated people are also the world’s greatest blessing! And if privilege is not something to be shamed for, but rather a providence of God, then it is a providential part of the chosen-ness of Israel that makes them a blessing.
In their book “The Chosen Few”, Maristella Botticini and Zvi Eckstein write,
“Why are so many Jews urban dwellers rather than farmers? Why are Jews primarily engaged in trade, commerce, entrepreneurial activities, finance, law, medicine, and scholarship? And why have the Jewish people experienced one of the longest and most scattered diasporas in history, along with a steep demographic decline?”
Most likely, the standard answers they would suggest would be along these lines: “The Jews are not farmers because their ancestors were prohibited from owning land in the Middle Ages.” “They became moneylenders, bankers, and financiers because during the medieval period Christians were banned from lending money at interest, so the Jews filled in that role.” “The Jewish population dispersed worldwide and declined in numbers as a result of endless massacres.”
Why so blessed?
The idea that Jews are innately good with money is among the oldest Jewish stereotypes, one that continues to impact perceptions of Jews today. As stereotypical as this sounds many Jewish people have shaped the finances of America and the world throughout history.
The creative arts have been both a curse and a blessing. But Jewish people have been at the forefront of Hollywood and Broadway. Laughing at ourselves, crying through our pain, we have been good at being creative! Professor Ruth Wisse write, “our jokes unpack that trauma in three major ways”:
Exploring our so-called “chosenness”
Beating antisemites to the punch
Mocking authority figures — including God
Blessed to be a blessing. Can’t deny it.