I have become fatigued with the constant nonsense about Jews being wealthy and the resulting antisemitism that notion gives rise to.  I’m annoyed because, as a member of the faith, I work just as hard as anyone else, have the same bills to pay and so do all my friends.  Recently in conversation someone said about a possible business venture: “C’mon, you’re Jewish, you know how to make money”.

Recently, an article surfaced discussing wealth disparity.

http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/meet-the-80-people-who-are-as-rich-as-half-the-world/

It lists 80 people in the world who have the equivalent wealth of 3.6 billion of the poorest people on the planet.  The total that wealth this list holds is $1.9 trillion collectively.  Were this wealth to be redistributed (a verboten term in economics) each of the 3.6 billion people would have $528 US.  When considering this figure, realize that $528 US may be a large amount of money for someone in a country with a floundering or non-existent economy.  It may seem off topic to discuss wealth redistribution but it has been a common theme in history that ‘fleecing the Jews’ will solve the world’s problems.  Not even fleecing the worlds top 80 wealthiest (Jewish and Non-Jewish alike) would accomplish that.

So analyzing the data for the percentage of Jewish people vs Non-Jewish we get 25% whereas, according to Wikipedia, the Jews represent 0.1% of the world’s population.  Clearly there is a disproportional representation and numerous essays and books have been proffered to explain the discrepancy.  They all revolve around Jews, historically, being relegated to banking and Judaism being an erudite religion.  Here is an example of one of the many theories along these themes, this one being relatively new:

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/making-sense/the-chosen-few-a-new-explanati/

Just the same 25% does not represent a Jewish monopoly on wealth, far from it.

Moreover, the data reveals that 100% of the Jews on this list were self made whereas only half of the Non Jews on the list were self made.  This dispels the notion that a great Jewish conspiracy (specifically collusion) is responsible for Jewish wealth.

I doubt that this data will change opinions however because the need for a scapegoat and someone to blame for one’s lot in life supersedes logic and data.  However, if one chooses to continue this diatribe about Judaism and wealth, they should know that the data does not support their twisted world view.

---

Here is the data I used to derive the statistics:

(source: http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/meet-the-80-people-who-are-as-rich-as-half-the-world/)

Ranking	Name	Wealth ($Billions)	Country	Self Made?	Industry	Jewish?
1	Bill Gates	$76	USA	✓	Tech	No
2	Carlos Slim Helu	$72	Mexico	✓	Telecom	No
3	Amancio Ortega	$64	Spain	✓	Retail	No
4	Warren Buffett	$58	USA	✓	Finance	No
5	Larry Ellison	$48	USA	✓	Tech	Yes
6	Charles Koch	$40	USA		Diversified	No
7	David Koch	$40	USA		Diversified	No
8	Sheldon Adelson	$38	USA	✓	Entertainment	Yes
9	Christy Walton	$37	USA		Retail	No
10	Jim Walton	$35	USA		Retail	No
11	Liliane Bettencourt	$35	France		Product	No
12	Stefan Persson	$34	Sweden		Retail	No
13	Alice Walton	$34	USA		Retail	No
14	S. Robson Walton	$34	USA		Retail	No
15	Bernard Arnault	$34	France		Luxury	No
16	Michael Bloomberg	$33	USA	✓	Finance	Yes
17	Larry Page	$32	USA	✓	Tech	Yes
18	Jeff Bezos	$32	USA	✓	Retail	No
19	Sergey Brin	$32	USA	✓	Tech	Yes
20	Li Ka-shing	$31	Hong Kong	✓	Diversified	No
21	Mark Zuckerberg	$29	USA	✓	Tech	Yes
22	Michele Ferrero	$27	Italy		Food	No
23	Aliko Dangote	$25	Nigeria	✓	Commodities	No
24	Karl Albrecht	$25	Germany	✓	Retail	Yes
25	Carl Icahn	$25	USA	✓	Finance	Yes
26	George Soros	$23	USA	✓	Finance	Yes
27	David Thomson	$23	Canada		Media	No
28	Lui Che Woo	$22	Hong Kong	✓	Entertainment	No
29	Dieter Schwarz	$21	Germany		Retail	No
30	Alwaleed Bin Talal Alsaud	$20	Saudi Arabia	✓	Finance	No
31	Forrest Mars Jr.	$20	USA		Food	No
32	Jacqueline Mars	$20	USA		Food	No
33	John Mars	$20	USA		Food	No
34	Jorge Paulo Lemann	$20	Brazil	✓	Drinks	No
35	Lee Shau Kee	$20	Hong Kong	✓	Diversified	No
36	Steve Ballmer	$19	USA	✓	Tech	Yes
37	Theo Albrecht Jr.	$19	Germany		Retail	No
38	Leonardo Del Vecchio	$19	Italy	✓	Luxury	No
39	Len Blavatnik	$19	USA	✓	Diversified	Yes
40	Alisher Usmanov	$19	Russia	✓	Extractives	No
41	Mukesh Ambani	$19	India		Extractives	No
42	Masayoshi Son	$18	Japan	✓	Telecom	No
43	Michael Otto	$18	Germany		Retail	No
44	Phil Knight	$18	USA	✓	Retail	No
45	Tadashi Yanai	$18	Japan	✓	Retail	No
46	Gina Rinehart	$18	Australia		Extractives	No
47	Mikhail Fridman	$18	Russia	✓	Extractives	Yes
48	Michael Dell	$18	USA	✓	Tech	Yes
49	Susanne Klatten	$17	Germany		Cars	No
50	Abigail Johnson	$17	USA		Finance	No
51	Viktor Vekselberg	$17	Russia	✓	Metals	No
52	Lakshmi Mittal	$17	India		Metals	No
53	Vladimir Lisin	$17	Russia	✓	Transport	Yes
54	Cheng Yu-tung	$16	Hong Kong	✓	Diversified	No
55	Joseph Safra	$16	Brazil	✓	Finance	Yes
56	Paul Allen	$16	USA	✓	Tech	Yes
57	Leonid Mikhelson	$16	Russia	✓	Extractives	Yes
58	Anne Cox Chambers	$16	USA		Media	No
59	Francois Pinault	$16	France	✓	Retail	No
60	Iris Fontbona	$16	Chile		Extractives	No
61	Azim Premji	$15	India		Tech	No
62	Mohammed Al Amoudi	$15	Saudi Arabia	✓	Extractives	No
63	Gennady Timchenko	$15	Russia	✓	Extractives	No
64	Wang Jianlin	$15	China	✓	Real Estate	No
65	Charles Ergen	$15	USA	✓	Telecom	No
66	Stefan Quandt	$15	Germany		Cars	No
67	Germán Larrea Mota Velasco	$15	Mexico		Extractives	No
68	Harold Hamm	$15	USA	✓	Extractives	No
69	Ray Dalio	$14	USA	✓	Finance	No
70	Donald Bren	$14	USA	✓	Real Estate	No
71	Georg Schaeffler	$14	Germany		Product	No
72	Luis Carlos Sarmiento	$14	Colombia	✓	Finance	No
73	Ronald Perelman	$14	USA	✓	Finance	Yes
74	Laurene Powell Jobs	$14	USA		Entertainment	No
75	Serge Dassault	$14	France		Aviation	No
76	John Fredriksen	$14	Cyprus	✓	Transport	No
77	Vagit Alekperov	$14	Russia	✓	Extractives	No
78	John Paulson	$14	USA	✓	Finance	No
79	Rupert Murdoch	$14	USA	✓	Media	No
80	Ma Huateng	$13	China	✓	Tech	No