Genius and Anxiety| A Book Review

Genius & Anxiety: How Jews Changed the World, 1847-1947 by Norman Lebrecht

At the beginning of this book, the author Norman Lebrecht warns that he is not a scholar, he was writing as an artist and a serious collector of Jewish records. Those two alone were his biggest strength. That he was an artist and that he was deeply curious about Jewish history.

Norman’s book reads like poetry at some point. The sentences were well thought out, the ideas communicated are clear and the transitions into new paragraphs are excellent.

This is a book about how popular Jews have treated their Jewishness. Some of them tried to deny it, others tried to make it subtle, and others wore it like a crown. In all, their Jewishness shaped how they think.

Being a Jew comes with a worldview, the author argues that this worldview has shaped some of the most popular figures in history, from Karl Marx to Albert Einstein. His arguments are not without facts. He quotes extensively from the personal diaries of many of the figures. Many of the figures are popular figures, however, there are a few that are not popular, I was meeting them here for the first time.

In Nigeria, Christians especially continue to perpetuate the notion that Jews are a people blessed by God and that is solely the reason they are progressing. My studies in Jewish history have proved that to be fatally false. Yes, I believe God has blessed every nation on earth, including Israel. But he has no special blessing for them at all. The Jews are successful because they know how to navigate the world. For instance, there was a time Ulysses Grant wanted to expel the Jews, a Rothschild family member sent him a reminder that he was owing to some debt. The power of money.

Another case is the establishment of the Jewish state. Many people today claim it was some sort of miracle that Angels descended and arranged. This book shows how the debate happened at the UN and why the Arabs could not stop the establishment of a Jewish state, the Arabs didn’t want an option, they were not even advocating for an Arab state, while the Jews were making a case for a Jewish state with tolerance for minorities. All this was coming in the aftermath of a war in which 6 million Jews had been killed.

Furthermore, it chronicles how influential Jews had lobbied for several things across history. For instance, Albert Einstein’s letter to President FDR about the atomic bomb was not originally Einstein’s idea but another Jew.

It is important to dispel the mythical image of Israel and the Jews we have because only then can we learn from them. If Jews are blessed by God, and that is the sole reason they are successful, it means no one else can be successful like them. But if Jews are ordinary humans like us who have used their history to carve out a new future for themselves, it means everyone can try this.

A key focus of this book is public figures in the arts, science, and literature. Writers, poets, historians, scientists, rabbis, professors, etc, and rarely politicians.

A major thing I picked from this book is how Jews are realists. A particular story comes to mind. While the Jews were in the concentration camps, they held a “trial of God”. They put God in the dock and railed their case against him. And they found Him guilty. Yet, God survived the Holocaust. Rabbis are still influential in Israel. Perhaps the realism of the Jews is the most important trait that has helped them survive.

I’m looking forward to the book by Simon Schama “The Story of the Jews” to further understand this.

This is my third book on Jews. I had read “The Jewish Phenomenon” and “Startup Nation”. They are all excellent books that cover different aspects of Jewishness, but adding up together gives a good picture of Jews.

I deeply enjoyed this book.

Have you read any books on Jews?