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In the USA 15% of Jews live below the poverty level. This compares to about 8% for non-Jewish whites, 20% for African Americans, 16% for Hispanics.

Of course there is the Jewish stereotype. Jews were not the only ones, but some Jews were among the first to develop the film industry. And in New York “Tin Pan Alley” had a large number of Jewish songwriters so they have a presence in the music business as well. There are prominent Jews in other visible industries such as banking and investment.

If you go back 2 generations though, Jews did not have a big presence in ownership of broadcast licenses, though they were behind the scenes on the creative side of television. It was only after consolidation of industry that it became more obvious. People sometimes point to Jewish presence in various fields such as journalism, medicine, and the law. As for journalism, this was one industry that Jews had to crack into by just doing better work than their non-Jewish peers. That’s all changing though. Medicine and the Law are both fields for individual achievement. You gotta be good at it to do it for a living.

I think the reason some Jews seem to be over represented in certain fields has to do with Jewish values that came with the pre-war Jewish immigration. Jewish law requires men to study. They first study Judaism, and there is a joke about find me 2 Jews and I’ll show you 3 opinions. Traditionally Jewish study involves a lot of debate. The Talmud is all about debate, it is mainly just a collection legal debates and opinions on the interpretation of Jewish law.

Now take those Jewish values of study and debate and seeing many sides of an issue and place them in a secular Liberal society, and you can see why many Jews excel. They learn how to learn at a very young age. It’s one of the reasons Harvard put a quota on Jewish enrollment, and for the same reason they seem to now have an unwritten quota against Asians, which also place a high cultural value on learning.

But if you ask me, my opinion is that in another 2 generation Jewish over-representation in most or all of these fields will equalize for various reasons.

Anyway, the fact is that in America Jews are over-represented in the poverty rates. It’s just an interesting counterpoise to the stereotypes.