Why are the Jews so special

ANY HONEST observer will have to  admit that by every measure the Jews  are a very special people and exhibit  an intelligence far beyond anything  possessed by any other nation. 

Such a statement will immediately be  branded as racial discrimination but the  facts have to be faced if we want to be  honest. 

To start with, no nation on earth has  produced anywhere near the number  of Nobel Prize winners. Jews make up  only 0.2% of world population yet 22%  of Nobel Prizes have been won on merit  by Jews and 26 are in scientific fields! 

Forbes magazine published a list  of Jewish billionaires in 2025 and  indicated there were 276 spread all  over the world. Only 39 live in Israel  and 163 live in the United States. 

Then there is the nation of Israel.  Starting from 1948 when they defeated  the combined armies of all the Arab  countries there were only 716,000  Jews in Palestine and many of these  had fled from persecution with very  little possessions. Total world Jewish  population in 1947 was estimated at  somewhere between 16 and 19 million  almost entirely scattered all over the  world with the largest concentration in  USA at around 5 million. In 2025 the  figure has risen to 7.7 million. Orthodox  Jews have large families yet the growth  has been retarded by persecution. 

In 1897 the leaders of the Jews gathered  in Basle, Switzerland, at the First  Zionist Congress to begin to organize  a national home for persecuted Jews.  Only by possessing their own country  

could they defend themselves from  attack. Every time there is an outbreak  of persecution of Jews, there is a surge  in migration to the land and today there  are about 7.5 million Jews in Israel. 

The number of Jews in USA is about  7.7 million. Migration is largely from  Europe where they suffered Programs. 

Between 1881 and 1924 there were  about 2.5 million Jews who migrated  to USA from Europe. Europe has not  been kind to the Jews. The Spanish  Inquisition drove the Jews from Spain  in 1492 and the Reformation that  began in 1516 brought no relief, Luther  had no sympathy for Jews and in his  book he proposed destruction of their  synagogues. Hitler killed 6 million in  the Holocaust and the influx of Muslims  to Europe has caused many Jews to  flee to Israel. 

The fact of the matter is that America  has been a haven for persecuted Jews  in the 20th century. Today one third of Jewry is living in Israel, one third in  America and one third are scattered in  all other countries. The miracle is that  they have not integrated and lost their  national identity. Wherever they are  today they are still Jews! 

Is it any wonder that America is the  most powerful nation on the face of  the earth? With Jewish brains and  the promises of God, it could not be  otherwise! 

With a history stretching over the last  2000 years where they have been  hated and persecuted, they are today  re-established in the land that God  gave to Abraham 4,000 years ago and  in the last 8 decades have risen from  the ashes to become the most powerful  nation in the Middle East! 

Israel has weapons more advanced  than all other nations. Her Iron Dome  defence system is amazing but the Iron Beam Laser system is just incredible.  In an instant the Iron Beam can destroy  incoming rockets or enemy planes and  each shot costs only a few cents. It has  changed the entire art of warfare. 

With a record like that there has to be  something special about being a Jew!  What is it? 

Israel was just a family until they went  down to Egypt in the days of Joseph  but when they came out of Egypt they  were a nation with 12 tribes and Moses  could say, 

“what nation is there so great, who  hath God so nigh unto them, as the  LORD our God is in all things that we  call upon him for? And what nation is there so great, that hath statutes  and judgments so righteous as all  this law, which I set before you this  day?” (Deut.4:7-8) 

No other nation can claim to be so  special to Almighty God. Their God given laws are the essence of morality,  honesty and decency and heathen  nations that abandon these laws rule  with great cruelty. 

Furthermore from Israel’s very  beginning God pledged Himself to be  Israel’s Protector in an evil world. He  promised Abraham that those who  bless his seed would be blessed and  all those who cursed them would be  cursed by God.  

The nation of Israel was always  intended to be God’s representative  people on earth. He told them “Ye  are My witnesses” (Isa.43:10-12) to all  the Gentile nations. He placed then  in the land located at the hub of three  continents. The highways of the world  cris-crossed through Israel so that  they would see and understand the  God of Israel. Wherever Jews went  to trade they took God’s law, set up  synagogues and made converts. The Bible is the only accurate history of the  world. It was written by Jews and tells  the future. 

When Gentiles from other countries  that worshipped idols turned to the  Lord they became “strangers in Israel”  in a covenant relationship with the  Creator.  

From the very beginning the uniqueness  of the nation of Israel was God’s plan to  bring redemption to the people of the  world. Jews were intended to be God’s  messengers to the world just as the  Church is today. 

When God chose to send His beloved  Son as a man into the world to shed His  blood so that the sin of man could be  put away, He chose a Jewish virgin of  the kingly line of David in the nation of  Israel. The Son of God was a Jew! 

Jesus told the Samaritan woman: “Ye worship ye know not what: we  know what we worship: for salvation  is of the Jews” (John4:22)

Israel’s relationship with the Creator is  unique and God will not tolerate seeing  them injured. He may punish them  when they sin and are disobedient but  woe betide any person who dares to  persecute the Jews. He told Israel: 

“he that toucheth you toucheth the  apple of His eye” (Zech.2:8)

That promise was spoken in a day when  the Samaritans were threatening the  Jews who had returned from Babylon  and when Haman was planning to wipe  out all the Jews throughout the Persian  Empire. 

It is true that God has had to chasten  the Jews when they are disobedient.  He sent the Assyrians to punish them  but when Sennacherib ceased to be  God’s instrument and took it on himself  to vent his fury on Jerusalem God slew  185,000 of his mighty men in one night!

When Israel walks with God they are  guaranteed supremacy over all nations  on earth and in the future kingdom are  promised that 

“the nation and kingdom that will not  serve thee (Israel) shall perish; yea,  those nations shall be utterly wasted”  (Isa.60:12)

God always intended to dwell on this  earth with His people. That’s why He  created the earth in the first place.  He appointed one of His Archangels  to administer life on earth but that  Archangel was proud and led one third  of the angels in rebellion. But the day  will come when Satan will be cast into a  lake of fire with all his angels and God  will dwell with all His saints on a New  Heaven and Earth cleansed of all sin.  In that day believers from this Church  age will occupy the heavenly city, New  Jerusalem, and Israel will have the  names of the 12 tribes inscribed on  twelve gates in the wall of that city. No  other nation will have that privilege. 

But even before that, during the  millennial kingdom, the redeemed  Jews will administer the kingdom and  go out to the nations as “the ministers  of our God” (Isa.61:6)

“In those days it shall come to pass,  that ten men shall take hold out of  all languages of the nations, even  shall take hold of the skirt of him that  is a Jew, saying, We will go with you:  for we have heard that God is with  you.” (Zech.8:23)

God has a special plan for the Jews  and even though the Jews crucified  the Son of God, His plan will never be  abandoned. 

Sadly we see arrogant clergy preaching  “Replacement Theology”. They believe  God has given up on the Jew and  replaced them with the Church. They  change the plain words of scripture and  “spiritualize” the interpretation. But God has said: 

“Thus saith the LORD, which giveth  the sun for a light by day, and the  ordinances of the moon and of  the stars for a light by night, which  divideth the sea when the waves  thereof roar; The LORD of hosts is his  name: If those ordinances depart  from before me, saith the LORD,  then the seed of Israel also shall  cease from being a nation before  me for ever. Thus saith the LORD;  If heaven above can be measured,  and the foundations of the earth  searched out beneath, I will also cast  off all the seed of Israel for all that  they have done, saith the LORD”  (Jer.31:35-37)

Is it any wonder that antisemitism  has existed for the past 4,000 years?  If Israel could have been destroyed  by Assyria, Babylon, Persia, Greece  or Rome there would have been no  Messiah; no Saviour of the world. If  today Israel can be destroyed the grand  plan that God has for this world would  be thwarted. But nothing that Satan  can do can frustrate the purposes of  God and so the Psalmist could write: 

“Why do the heathen rage, and the  people imagine a vain thing? The  kings of the earth set themselves,  and the rulers take counsel together,  against the LORD, and against his  anointed …. He that sitteth in the  heavens shall laugh: the LORD shall  have them in derision. Then shall he  speak unto them in his wrath, and  vex them in his sore displeasure.

Yet  have I set my king upon my holy hill  of Zion” (Ps.2:1-6)