Jews, Israelis and the Noble prize

The Nobel, the famous of all prizes, divided since 1901 following the will of Alfred Nobel, Swedish industrialist and inventor of the dynamite.

Analysis of the first 100 years of the prize-giving shows that the weight of Jewish Nobel laureates is not proportional to the percentage of the Jewish population in the world, or even their percentage only in the western world. This amazing statistic shows us that 21% of Nobel Prize winners are Jews or half Jews (Jews by the father).

The number of Jews in the world, during these first 100 years, relative to the average total population in that period, was lower than 0.3% (up to the Holocaust the Jews were an average of nearly 0.4% of the world population). In other words, the number of Noble prizes won by Jews was totaling more than 70 times their weight in the population!

Here are some number, In Economics 20 of 51 (39%, it should be noted that the Nobel Prize in Economics is presented only since 1969). Literature 11 of 99 (11%), Nobel Peace Prize 11 of 95 (12%). Altogether 155 Jews (and half Jews) out of the 731 winners in 100 years.

These numbers have proven the "Jewish genius", no less. No matter how you look at the numbers, they're amazing. 39% of Nobel Prize winners are Jews. The gentiles always claimed that the Jews excel in commerce and economics. Anti-Semitic doctrines were build base on that fact. Nobel Prize proves that there's apparently some truth in it.

Sorting by country the United States swept most of the awards (232 Nobel Prizes in the 20Th century) followed by Germany (83) and Britain (80). Later the numbers going sharply down with France (49) and (31) awards to Sweden. Then Russia (20) Switzerland (20), Italy (18) Netherlands (16) Denmark (13) and thus ends the first ten winners among the states in 100 years history of Nobel Prize in the 20Th century.

Why Israelis didn't win Nobel in science during the first century?

Until the Nobel winnings of Israelis in the beginning of this century, the question must be asked. Why were so few Israelis? (Peres and Rabin won the Nobel Peace Prize, Agnon won the Nobel Prize for Literature) Why Israelis never won a Nobel in science? Is it because the scientific community in Israel is lagging behind the rest of the world? Is it due of relatively low achievements? Are we so busy with security problems until we can't find the time and resources to invest in science? Perhaps, God erased the mind of the Jews the moment they moved back to their fathers land... There were also raised allegations of anti-Israel committees, conspiracy and what not.

Answers to these questions should be investigated, but all that changed with the winning of Kahneman in Nobel Prize in Economics back in 2002. What came after was even better, since the beginning of the 21St century Israel came to be first place in winnings per person, no less.

Since the beginning of the 21St century Israel is the first in Nobel prizes per capita.

The winning by Prof. Ada Yonath from the Weizmann Institute in Chemistry this year increased to five the number of Nobel Prizes won by Israelis since the beginning of the century. Daniel Kahneman won the Nobel Prize in economics in 2002, Avram Hershko and Aaron Ciechanover won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2004 and Robert Aumann won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2005. It is also important to note that in the 21St century all of Israeli winnings were in science.

Since the beginning of the 21St century, a total of 119 Nobel Prizes (usually two winners per prize) were given. Israel with a population which is approximately 0.1% of the world population received over 4% of the awards, 40 times their number in the world's population. But the really amazing achievement is that since the turn of the 21st century, Israel is the world's first Nobel prizes winner per capita. Israelis are Nobel Prize winners at a ratio of one every 1.5 million residents. Austria which is in the second place received awards for one of every 2.8 million people. Britain, one of every 5.5 million people. U.S., received one of every 6 million people.

Since the beginning of the 21st century Israel is sixth place in the world in Nobel Prizes in general (including peace and literature)!

It should be noted that the classification was done according to the citizenship of the winners, this way the U.S. gets 50 prizes, when the actual number is 65 laureates who actually live there today (including the Israeli Kahneman).

It is also interesting to note that Sweden, which was world champion receiving the Nobel Prizes per capita in the first century since Nobel begun, with an average of slightly more than 3 awards per decade, received only one Nobel Prize since the beginning of the 21St century. It's hard to ignore the fact that the Swedes themselves are part of the award committee, a fact which probably explains why so many candidates were actually Swedish. Switzerland and Denmark were second and third place in the 20Th century. Since the beginning of the 21St century Switzerland is with one Noble and Denmark with none.

Of course it's too early to predict statistics for a whole century. The statistics of the 20Th century suggest that the Swedes, Swiss and Danish are always strong candidates for the Nobel.

Iceland with a population of 310,000 won one Noble so far. Haldor Laxness won a Noble prize in literature back 1965. One noble for such a tiny nation puts Iceland way up in the scale as far as the statistics shows.