Marginalized people can react in one of two ways: work harder than anyone else, work smarter, network; give up. Guess which tack most Jews (including me) took.
As it happens I know somewhat one of those entrepreneurs. He is from a Russian immigrant family (although his father is a mathematics professor) and he just worked harder than anyone else. His main supporter was his thesis advisor, who certainly isn’t Jewish.
I dunno; I’ve never encountered any reluctance to discuss Judaism as a culture or ethnicity. As you note, lots of people are not religiously Jewish, indeed not religious at all, yet consider themselves culturally or ethnically Jewish (like me!).
New York City, as with many other large cities, is a cultural, financial, educational, social and economic hub. Being from the New York area confers an advantage much in the way that being from rural Arkansas does not. IOW, if you want to grow up to be a lawyer, investment banker or tech guy, it helps to grow up in a place where there are a lot of law firms, investment banks and tech startups, as well as the schools that train people to do these things.
But “the number of people from other cultures/backgrounds who value education just as highly as Jews should be at least equal if not higher than the total number of Jews in the world, and yet they are not as equally represented in” the ranks of Nobel prize winners (and not just in science, literature too).
I do not disagree that it takes more than education to achieve as an entrepreneur (or an Academy Award winning directors for that matter); I just think that you underestimate the importance of those other cultural features for other areas that you think of as more academic. The Nobel Prize is not won by those who memorized the most, but those who thought about what they learned in significantly new ways, even against strongly held status quos. That is the crux of an old Jewish proverb/insult (Talmudic I think): “He is a bookcase, not a scholar.” I am not sure but I doubt many other faiths put so much stock in a human being able to argue with God.
I’m culturally Jewish, I’m not religious – another for the “No taboo” boat. There’s never been any compunction about talking about it for me, or others I’ve met.
I’m not sure there’s any other religion that says “You can’t operate equipment on Sabbath,” and goes “Fuck it, the elevator will open itself!”
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again - Judaism, as a religion and a code of laws, customs and behaviour, is an extremely logical and rational system - based on an extremely irrational and illogical set of premises.
Generations of rabbis arguing with freedom and insight over the minutae and complexities of the law as set out in the Talmud is, apparently, a good cultural basis for arguing over the complexities of the secular laws, or the laws of nature.
