Jews have contributed so much to the intellectual life of other countries that one gets the impression that the Jewish people as a whole is like that. Going to

Jews have contributed so much to the intellectual life of other countries that one gets the impression that the Jewish people as a whole is like that. Going to Israel for the first time was a shock because there I was swiftly disabused of that notion. In Israel, one meets the whole spectrum of people from extremely intellectual to anti-intellectual as you might find anywhere. I had a similar experience when I visited Finland for the first time after knowing of it only as a country with high achievement in schools and free university education. Most of the Finns I knew abroad came from these highly educated backgrounds. But when I visited the country, suddenly I came face to face with school dropouts mopping floors and alcoholic layabouts, just like in any other country on earth.