This is truly deplorable and Volokh's reaction is understandable. But doesn't anyone think "overrepresented on the Manhattan Project" line is, well, a little out of line? We didn't exactly abandon that project once the Nazis were defeated.

Maybe I should read that line to my mother-in-law, a survivor of the Nagasaki bomb. Doubtless she'll appreciate it and it will lead her to a deeper understanding of anti-Semitism. Come on, there are better ways to express what ought to be an unimpeachable sentiment.

What E-dog said. That line was a little weird.

I think Volokh's point in referring to the Manhattan Project is that anti-Semites here in America claim that Jews act contrary to the interests of the United States (the "Jewish cabal").

If you argue that World War II could not have ended without fat man and little boy (debateable, I know) perhaps that's evidence that American Jews DO act in the interest of America.

Perhaps there is also a more simple explanation: the so-called "golden age" of physics in the twentieth century occurred during the period between the world wars, and most of the most famous of those physicists were Jewish. The Manhattan Project was the culmination of their renown.

If you argue that World War II could not have ended without fat man and little boy (debateable, I know) perhaps that's evidence that American Jews DO act in the interest of America.

But weren't the Jews on the Manhattan Project really acting in the best interests of their own group? From what I understood, most of the Jewish scientists thought that the atomic bomb was going to be used on Germany, not Japan.

Or is it that Jews are simply smarter? That's where my money is (no antisemitic pun intended).

Yeah, we're overrepresented on university faculties, in law and medicine, in the Senate, on the Supreme Court. [Don't forget the blogosphere!!--DD.] Speaking of Nazis, we were overrepresented on the Manhattan Project, too.

Would I be correct in assuming that you believe in the Bell Curve?

This is a pretty bizarre comment thread. Considering Volokh was being threatened by people who don't think he's fully human, I think his response was fairly measured.

Washerdreyer is right. Unless the reader checks out the links Volokh provides to the neo-Nazi website, his anger seems out of context. After looking at the links, his angry defiance seems admirable. He is not talking about any "Bell Curve" - he's rebuffing an effort by evil loonies to intimidate him.

In my pre-blog days when I would comment at FrontPage Magazine, there were a handful of occasions when I would post a comment on some Israel-related issue, and the next day I'd find in my inbox an email advertising the very same VNN website whose attention has been caught by Eugene Volokh. No hate mail, just a link to the website - apparently a subtle way of saying "screw you."

Given Jewish history, it is understandable that Volokh feels threatened.

But his statement shows that he has been knocked off his game. First, the Bolshevik movement that brought down a great Russian civilization was heavily Jewish. So trying to claim the Soviet Union was antisemitic is a bit rich. Even in the supposedly antisemitic Brezhnev years, there were ethnic Jews in all sorts of responsible positions. A Russian teacher (Jew converted to Lutheranism) told me once that a favorite Soviet tactic was to place a Russian speaking Jew as number two in the Republics, esp. central asia. I haven't checked the data, but have no reason to doubt her. Late Soviet antisemitism seems to have been limited largely limited to 'refuseniks' and zionists, but then again, everyone who tried to leave the Soviet Union was persona non grata.

Second, Germany is a quite pleasant place to live, indeed on any rational scale of purchasing power, free time, and just plain decent living, I would put today's Germany right up near the top. So if Volokh is claiming that a large percentage of Jews is necessary for a country to prosper, he's wrong there.

Third, let's look at casuality. Does a country become powerful (if that is even a desideratum, I am more interested in peace and prosperity) because of Jews, or do Jews migrate there because the country looks to have been economically and militarily powerful? The United States' path to power was recognized by De Tocqueville long before there was a significant Jewish population in the country. The real entry of the US onto the world stage, the Spanish American war, was planned and fought before the masses of Jewish immigrants had any sort of impact national power or policy. Indeed, maybe Jews were attracted to this rising star of a nation. It is hard to claim that Jews are necessary or even a major factor of national power, which it seems is what Volokh is doing.

Third, to bring up Jews and Manhattan project naturally leads to association with the Rosenbergs. Not a good association if you are trying to link Jews and patriotism.

And of course there have been Jews in the Arab world forever, indeed many Jews (and others) never tire of telling Christians how much better Islam was than those nasty Catholics of the Middle Ages. Their relative semitophilia doesn't seem to have done the Arabs much good. Somehow Christian Europe managed to produce the Rennaisance , the Scientific Revolution, the Enlightenment all the while being ghastly to Jews. Or so the story goes.

These issues are complex. It does no good to 'think with the blood' as Volokh has obviously done (was provoked to do). A more nuanced analysis is needed. While he can reasonably be called anti-Semitic (and just as reasonably be defended from the charge) Kevin MacDonald has done real and careful scholarship regarding the interethnic dynamics between Jews and the surrounding populations. So too, supposedly, has Solzhenitsyn with 'Two Centuries Together' in dealing with the relations between Russians and Jews. Unfortunately the work is available only in Russian and lately in French. If I was in a tinfoil hat mood, I might be prompted to ask why a major work by a major literary figure has not yet appeared in English, but let's just hope that it is a matter of getting a decent translation.

But weren't the Jews on the Manhattan Project really acting in the best interests of their own group? From what I understood, most of the Jewish scientists thought that the atomic bomb was going to be used on Germany, not Japan.

Yuck. These were brilliant human beings, not labelled computing machines calculating self-interest. They weren't just worried about Germany b/c Nazi Germany hated Jews, though clearly that gave them some first hand knowledge of how evil Nazis can be--good motivation if you'd rather spend your days dreaming about QED than calculating blast radii. They were also worried about Germany because of the colleagues they'd left behind, like Heisenberg. I mean as far as they knew the man who invented the matrix formulation of quantum mechanics was working for Hitler. (And this wasn't such a crazy thing to worry about, see the Farmhall transcripts.)

You can debate and agonize over Hiroshima, and Nagasaki is significantly more problematic. But it really has very little to do with them being Jews, except two conspiracy-free factors. One was that the Jews who came here were slightly more likely to be secularized and excited about science, etc. than the total original set of Jews in the Pale previously. (similar to the fact that the cut of Asians coming to this country now tends to be strongly filtered for very geeky, scientific types). If anything, being Jewish still hurt you before World War II. See Gleick's Genius , in the MIT chapter--a section, entitled, "Feynam, of course is Jewish." The other factor is that Jews, culturally, promoted a high degree of learning and geekery which helped make a lot of Jewish kids leaders in physics.(Again, see Gleick. . .you can't blame Jews if the dominant set of Anglo-American culture happened to look down on tendencies that make good physicists.) And I say Jewish kids because if you think Richard Feynman self-identified as a Jew above being a physicst, I think you're insane.

I can't quite get through Stari Momak's rambling comment but:

Third, to bring up Jews and Manhattan project naturally leads to association with the Rosenbergs.

Yeah, only if you have no idea about physics and history and how the Manhattan Project worked, and you're trying to think of something unpatriotic. In other words--what the hell are you talking about? I think of titans like Oppenheimer, Feynman, and Bethe (Rest in Peace!). It does not naturally lead to any such association.

It is hard to claim that Jews are necessary or even a major factor of national power, which it seems is what Volokh is doing.

Can you not read? He's not claiming that at all. He's claiming that a country to which Jews are attracted, and in which they feel safe, is probably a great country because the quality of being friendly and open to Jews is a good indicator of qualities that will create greatness. The coming of the Jews is a symptomatic indicator, not a cause.

Jews migrate there because the country looks to have been economically and militarily powerful?

It's not just about power. It's about freedom. Freedom to be who you are and still pursue your dreams. The scientists who came here and built the bomb didn't have to stay. They were all homesick for Europe. But they recognized that America provided the foundation of a culture of freedom--typified exactly the American Feynman's carelessness--that would allow them to do absolutely amazing things in science. And they stayed to do them. That foundation was far from perfect, but it was there, and one of its hallmarks was the ability to at least frame a concept of a Western society that was not just non-antiSemitic, but not explicitly non-Semitic.

If you argue that World War II could not have ended without fat man and little boy (debateable, I know) perhaps that's evidence that American Jews DO act in the interest of America.

Oh, WW2 would have ended without Fat Man and Little Boy... but a lot more Americans and Japanese would have died in the process.

Speaking as someone with Pacific-theater WW2 vets in the family (a few of which didn't survive the war), I very much appreciate what the members of the Manhattan Project did for America- whatever their ethnicity or religion.