Perhaps hundreds of generations of being persecuted where the most clever, the most inventive of individuals are able to survive has made the genes of Ashkenazi Jews most advantageous for science and other intellectual pursuits.
This appears to be just an ornate little teapot but it is much more than that. You cannot imagine what's inside.
Deeming the Torah the exclusive property of Jews, the sages prohibited gentiles from learning Torah and Jews from teaching it to them.
The reason Jews have excelled in the area of economics is because they have believed that making money is a good thing in and of itself. When you are making money you are doing something good.
I do not excuse Jewish terrorism but I do want to put things in perspective: more people die from bee stings each year than have died at the hands of Jewish terrorists in the past 50 years.
I consider myself a cultural Jew. Although I am not a member of the Society for Humanistic Judaism, I identify with many of their principles. Some may call me a secular Jew although I do not identify myself with the majority of secular Jews in America.
As you may already know, Rick Sanchez has been fired from CNN for speaking the truth. Sanchez called "The Daily Show's" Jon Stewart a bigot while appearing on the " Stand Up! with Pete Dominick" SiriusXM radio show Friday morning and also said CNN was "run by Jews."
So for some Jews there is a sort of Heaven. But strictly speaking, the Torah tells us that physical death is the end of life. Later books in the Old Testament like Job (3:11-19) have a very dark view of the afterlife where all souls, both the righteous and the unrighteous alike, go down to the abode of the dead (in Hebrew: Sheol); a view lifted entirely from the Sumerian concept of the "underworld."
Last year the rules changed for basketball teams in Israel's Basketball Super League (the top division of Israeli basketball). The league administrators mandated that all teams must host cheerleaders or face fines. Not a problem for team Maccabi Electra Tel Aviv.
One could argue that because the Jews were dispersed throughout the world, they came in contact with many cultures and were thus able to take the best ideas of each nation and use them to their advantage.
