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Home > Articles > Why is the IQ of Ashkenazi Jews so High? - twenty possible explanations

Posted: Fri, June 07, 2013 | By: IQ

by Hank Pellissier

Ashkenazi Jews are smart. Shockingly brilliant, in general. Impressive in brain power. How did they get that way?

Ashkenazi Jews, aka Ashkenazim, are the descendants of Jews from medieval Alsace and the Rhine Valley, and later, from throughout Eastern Europe. Originally, of course, they were from Israel. Genetic research from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine suggests that the Ashkenazi bloodline branched away from other Jewish groups there 2,500 years ago, and that 40% of them are descended from only four Jewish mothers.Approximately 80% of the Jews in the world today are Ashkenazim, with the remainder primarily Sephardic.

Researchers who study the Ashkenazim agree that the children of Abraham are on top of the IQ chart. Steven Pinker who lectured on Jews, Genes, and Intelligence in 2007 - says their average IQ has been measured at 108-115. Richard Lynn, author of The Intelligence of American Jews in 2004, says it is only a half-standard higher: 107.5. Henry Harpending, Jason Hardy, and Gregory Cochran, University of Utah authors of the 2005 research report, Natural History of Ashkenazi Intelligence, state that their subjects, score .75 to 1.0 standard deviations above the general European average, corresponding to an IQ of 112-115. Charles Murray, in his 2007 essay Jewish Genius, says their mean is somewhere in the range of 107-115, with 110 being a plausible compromise.

A Jewish average IQ of 115 is 8 points higher than the generally accepted IQ of their closest rivalsNortheast Asiansand approximately 40% higher than the global average IQ of 79.1 calculated by Richard Lynn and Tatu Vanhanen in IQ and Global Inequity.

Plus, contemplate this astounding tidbit: Ashkenazi visual-spatial IQ scores are only mediocre; in one study their median in this category was a below-average 98. They surmount this liability by logging astronomic figures in verbal IQ, which includes verbal reasoning, comprehension, working memory and mathematical skill; a 1958 survey of yeshiva students discovered a median verbal IQ of 125.6.

What does it mean that Ashkenazim have a high IQ, in terms of producing geniuses? With their population so small - a mere 0.25 of the world total - does it make any serious difference? The answer is YES. A bell curveis used to illustrate IQ percentile in a specific group in a general population where IQ average is 100 the curve assumes these proportions:

less than 70 IQ - 2.5%

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