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Subject:
From:
Daniel Schiffman <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Societies for the History of Economics <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Thu, 2 Aug 2012 10:42:09 -0400
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I thank Prof. Weintraub for his insightful comments. It is indeed puzzling 
that historians of economics have neglected the overrepresentation of Jews 
in economics.  

I wish to broaden the discussion to the question of religious influence on 
economists. 

In 2007, the Center for the History of Political Economy (CHOPE) at Duke 
University hosted a conference on the subject "Keeping Faith, Losing 
Faith: Religious Belief and Political Economy." To the surprise of the 
organizers, there were no submissions dealing with Jewish economists (Brad 
Bateman and Spencer Banzhaf, "Keeping Faith, Losing Faith: An 
Introduction," HOPE 40 (Annual Supplement), 1-20). 

Why were there no submissions on Jewish economists?  Was it lack of 
interest on the part of historians of economic thought? I believe not. 
Rather, I believe that the lack of submissions reflects the paucity of 
religious influences on the writings and/or activities of the leading 
Jewish economists. This is understandable, when we consider that a. Jewish 
economists were highly secularized and b. those who were less secularized 
(if any) would have been compelled to conceal any religious influence, for 
fear that it would arouse Anti-Semitism and derail their academic careers.

Of course, the reality is different today. Today, an economist can publish 
work on Jewish economic history or on economic analysis of issues that 
arise in Jewish religious texts, without fear of Anti-Semitism. There is 
no need to act as Kuznets did--to write papers on Jewishly-oriented themes 
while concealing those papers from one's fellow economists.

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