Nation of Steel
No carbon, no steel. No Jews, no Nation of Steel.
Superman was the Man of Steel, the original superhero and avatar of the American Way. America, the original superpower, is the Nation of Steel, the first and only hyperpower.
Jewish-Americans are foundational to both. Jerry Siegel & Joe Shuster created Superman. America's pioneers and patriots have always included an essential Jewish minority, amidst a vast gentile majority. Indeed, Judeo-Christian civilization is essential to the Nation of Steel.
The 2% Formula
Thriving Jewish communities have been foundational to the success of great Western nations from the Spain of Ferdinand & Isabella, to the Dutch Golden Age of Rembrandt & Vermeer, to our own America, from President Washington to President Trump.
Christian host societies need the right base—institutions, geography, culture, resources, timing. Jews alone do not a great power make. But, remove the MVP minority or don't let it thrive? Kiss societal success goodbye.
Think of steel, an alloy of carbon & iron. Pure iron is soft. Add a drop of carbon—.2% to 1.5%—and you get steel: stronger, harder, more useful. Carbon isn't structural, but its host material becomes super strong. Further, the additive is far from the bulk of the total, yet its absence changes everything. No carbon? The host is dramatically weaker and less useful.
The size of Jewish communities for the last millennium follows that 2% Formula.
Jews were under 2% of Ferdinand & Isabella's Spain, and maybe 2% of the Netherlands in the Dutch Golden Age, albeit higher in the Amsterdam of Rembrandt. Here in the greatest country in world history, Jews number ... wait for it ... 2%. Same 2% share of carbon, same 2% share of Jews: steel, Nation of Steel in the case of the greatest nation in world history.
In short: no thriving Jewry → no great Western nation. Jews have had this super strengthening effect on successful Western countries going back to Roman times.
Let’s focus on three: Spain, Holland & America.
Western Jews
Spain's Loss
The Muslims conquered Spain & Portugal in 711. Islamic domination snuffed out Christianity from Madrid to Lisbon, Barcelona to the Basque Region. The Christian Reconquista followed, an eight-century war to retake Iberia from Muslim rule, culminating in an epochal victory. Ferdinand & Isabella, the Spanish King & Queen, banked that 1492 triumph of Christianity over Islam and then sponsored Christopher Columbus's voyage to the New World the same year. That paid off spectacularly over the coming century.
Jews were essential to the Christian Reconquista kingdoms as tax collectors, administrators, translators, physicians, and financiers. Two figures stand out: Senior & Abravanel.
Abraham Senior, the court rabbi of Castile and major tax farmer helped facilitate the 1469 marriage of Isabella of Castile and Ferdinand of Aragon, and later helped Isabella reconcile with her half-brother Henry IV. Abraham Senior became treasurer of the national militia/police force and served as factor-general for provisioning the Granada army. He and Isaac Abravanel jointly raised large sums from the Jewish communities (aljamas) for the war effort. Senior converted to Catholicism in June 1492 (age ~80) under intense pressure; Ferdinand and Isabella themselves stood as godparents at the public baptism. That royal treachery still stings.
Isaac Abravanel fled Portugal to Castile, where he became a leading financier and tax farmer. Abravanel loaned substantial personal funds to the crown for the Granada war. The Great Abravanel remained an unconverted Jew and led efforts to reverse the expulsion decree. When that failed, he chose exile and led much of the community out rather than convert. Spain's profound loss, his memory a profound blessing.
Once Granada fell on January 2, 1492, the utility of Jews declined sharply in the monarchs’ eyes in the face of the infamous Inquisition. Ferdinand & Isabella stupidly expelled the Jews on 31 March via the Alhambra Decree, a mere two months after the Jews helped Spain rid itself of Muslim rule.
That 1492 expulsion came the year that Christopher Columbus sailed the blue, meaning Spain didn't feel the pain anytime soon. Columbus's 1492 discovery led to Madrid gaining a vast empire through the Americas and rivers of silver, producing a spectacular 16th-century peak. In hindsight, it was all on auto-pilot from the pre-1492 Spain that had a vibrant 2% Jewish population. Once the Jews were gone, it couldn't last.
Indeed, Spain suffered relative decline over the following centuries versus rising northwestern powers. It lost its remaining major colonies in 1898; by the early 20th century it was a secondary power. Multiple causes operated (silver resource curse, Habsburg overstretch, institutional rigidities, the lack of something approximating English Common Law), but the deliberate removal of a necessary societal ingredient was a suicidal wound.
In short, no thriving Jewry → no great nation.
Holland's Gain
A century later, Sephardic Jews (many of Iberian origin, often via Portugal or as returning conversos, i.e., Christian converts) began settling in the Dutch Republic, especially in Amsterdam. Ashkenazim later outnumbered them. The total Jewish population, a small fraction of the Republic, was highly visible in commerce.
Relative tolerance (unusual for the era) allowed open practice and trade. Sephardic networks excelled in Atlantic trade (sugar, diamonds, tobacco, spices), finance, and brokerage, helping cement Amsterdam as a staple market and refining center. Cultural figures (Spinoza) and the broader mercantile environment interacted productively with Dutch strengths in shipping, capital markets, and republican institutions.
The coincidence of Jewish arrival/integration with the rise of the Dutch Golden Age and the height of Dutch commercial and artistic power is a clean and positive case of thriving Jewry → great nation.
America's Triumph
American exceptionalism includes the fact that no gentile country has more fully integrated Jews into its national fabric than America, nor grown greater through that admixture. Jewish-Americans have made outsized contributions to America since before 1776, becoming seamlessly blended into American culture by the latter half of the 20th century. That was the Seinfeld period, where the least remarked quality of an obviously Jewish comedian was that he was a Jew. (Never mind that we've regressed dramatically since then.)
How's this working for America? Pretty freaking great. Here's an abridged roll call of Jewish-Americans with outsized contributions to American life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Salomon: "I am a Jew; this is my own nation; I do not despair." 
Einstein 
Seinfeld
Liberty: The Jewish population of Revolutionary War America was well under 1%—similar to carbon in steel—yet produced financiers, suppliers, soldiers, and advocates who punched far above their numbers at a moment when the fledgling United States desperately needed credit, logistics, and commitment. This was early evidence of a recurring pattern: a small, high-skill minority functioning as a high-leverage additive to a rising Western nation. Consider Haym Salomon, a Polish-born Jewish immigrant, broker, and merchant in Philadelphia. Salomon specialized in converting French and Dutch loans into hard currency by selling bills of exchange, advanced personal funds (often interest-free or at low rates) to members of Congress—including James Madison, who later wrote that he had been “a pensioner on the favor of Haym Salomon”—and helped raise critical money for the Yorktown campaign in 1781. Contemporary accounts record General George Washington directing to “Send for Haym Salomon” when funds were needed.
Science: The roll call of Jewish-American physicists is the roll call of the greatest American physicists. It proceeds from Albert Einstein to J. Robert Oppenheimer, Richard Feynman and most of our American Nobel laureates. Jews are roughly 2% of the population, yet have received ~20–25% of American science Nobels. Jewish scientists are so successful, they are a cliche.
Medicine: Dr. Jonas Salk created the polio vaccine. Jewish doctors are treasured by patients of every stripe, often at Jewish hospitals that treat people of all creeds. Jewish doctors are so successful, mothers of all stripes want their daughters to marry one.
Culture: the aforementioned Jerry Seinfeld, Bob Dylan, Irving Berlin, Leonard Bernstein, Hollywood’s founding studio heads (Warner, Mayer, Zukor, Laemmle, Fox), Broadway, comedy, and literature. Speaking of comedy, Jews basically invented it, albeit have now been eclipsed by black comedians and by the good Christians of The Babylon Bee. Great Jewish writers are manifold, from Miller to Mamet to more.
Prosperity: Business, finance, law, and academia show parallel over-representation. Top entrepreneurs, lawyers, investors, bankers and academics are studded with high-achieving Jews, albeit Indians now outnumber them.
The pattern is consistent: smarts, reading, writing, arithmetic, work, drive & grit, all family-focused. Indeed, the Jewish family is a success multiplication institution since antiquity.
In short, thriving Jewry → great nation. America proves this enduring reality better than any nation ever.
Israel First
This post has focused on Jews as citizens. Let’s now briefly consider the Nation of Israel and its societal impact.
Israel First doesn’t mean Israel is more important than America to we Americans. It means that America is the apotheosis of the Judeo-Christian West, which was born in Israel.
The Judeo-Christian West began in Jerusalem, progressed to Athens, jumped to Rome, to Vienna, to Paris, Amsterdam and London. It reached full flower 250 years ago in America and has blossomed ever more over the ensuing quarter-millennium of American history.
Our Founding Fathers were students of the Hebrew Bible and of Moses the Lawgiver. Jefferson, Madison, Adams & Franklin were deeply influenced by our Hebrew forebears, as was the great Abraham Lincoln, our doomed saint.
No Israel, no Jesus, no Jews, no Christians, no America, no life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That's why a bas relief of the Jewish genius Moses Maimonides adorns the US Capital.
Israel First underpins America First. Always has and always will.
Escaping Carlsonism
The current recrudescence of antisemitism comes from a dogmatic anti-Western religion, on one hand, and deranged Western influencers, on the other. The Gaza graffiti on peerless Parisian monuments are from the former. Muslim led, they are forthright in evil intention.
The latter are pernicious, never forthright. Their suicidal Carlsonism is from inside the West.
Carlsonism stems from perverted societal heritage. Its essence is that life in the West, in America, would be better if the damn Jews weren't around. Whatever value that Jews & Judaism once brought is long over. "We've got it from here" is the calculus of egomaniacal Christian leaders from Ferdinand & Isabella to Tucker Carlson, the Father of Carlsonism.
The reality is the opposite, of course, as this post documents.
The harm caused by Carlsonism has been kept in check by the GOAT POTUS, albeit his heroic forbearance might not outlast him. (Donald J. Trump is the most philo-Semitic POTUS ever, albeit George Washington ranks up there with him.)
Sadly, Vice President JD Vance is Carlsonism curious, leaving the future of the last best hope of Earth hanging in the balance. America must escape both the Curse of Carlsonism and the imposition of a Caliphate from the anti-Western forces of Islam.
The smart money is on the Nation of Steel standing tall. All we have to do is follow the formula that built this country, including a thriving Jewish community of 2% and extending to a vital alliance with the State of Israel. Do that and the Nation of Steel will long endure.
Comments