Lindex #0125

Glazer N

Why Jews Stay Sober: Social Scientists Examine Jewish Abstemiousness

Commentary

1952; 13:181-186

The author discussed the mystery of why Jews don't drink in excess by exploring their history of drinking and the postulated explanations. Jews have been known to drink since Noah's discovery of wine. They had no religious restraint on drinking aside from the general rabbinic emphasis on moderation. There were a number of "lushes" scattered throughout the pages of the Bible. In the Middle Ages, about the time that distillation was introduced into Western Europe, the situation changed: either the Jews began drinking less or everyone else began drinking more. While the Catholic Church encouraged four cups of wine as a maximum, the Jews at Sader demanded four cups as a minimum. In addition to being habituated to drinking wine from childhood, Jews also spent their adult lives producing and selling spirits. The liquor trade in Eastern Europe was a Jewish monopoly from 15th century to 1892, when liquor became government monopoly.

At first Jewish sobriety was explained on the basis of their moral and religious code, however by the end of 19th century Jews were becoming less attached to traditional Law. Unhappy immigrants usually resorted to alcohol; yet the Jews who did not lack troubles did not turn to alcohol for consolation. Alcoholic psychosis was very rare among Jews. In 1929/31 admissions to New York State Hospitals for alcoholic psychoses for the foreign born were as follows: for the Irish, 25.6; Scandinavians, 7.8; Italians, 4.8; English, 4.3; Germans, 3.8; Jews 0.5. In 1951 1.6 percent of persons coming to alcohol treatment clinics were Jews, though they formed about 7.5 percent of the population in the eight cities studied. In 1941 the rate of arrests for drunkeness in San Francisco were 7,876/100,000 for the Irish, and 27/100,000 for the Jews. Admissions to a veterans hospital on Long Island were studied for 1936/39; of first and second generation admissions 1/111 Jews was an alcoholic; 5/113 Italians were alcoholics; 36/222 Irish were alcoholics; and of undifferentiated third generation whites 40/302 were alcoholics.

Another explanation is, that in those countries where sexual repression is severe alcoholism serves as an outlet. That helps explain Ireland but not Sweden or Jews, with their stringent code of sexual behavior. Another explanation links alcohol consumption with anxiety over the means of subsistence. This may apply to primitive people but it does not apply to America, one of the most favored of countries with one of the most serious alcoholic excesses. Kant wrote another explanation: "Women, ministers and Jews do not get drunk... because their civic position is weak and they need to be reserved...". This explanation may be consistent with the fact that for the last 1,000 years the Jews were under siege and had to be cautious, but in the days of ancient Palestine they were less cautious and drinking much more. The French sociologist Emile Durkheim believed that suicide was a measure of the extent of the breakdown of the moral law among different groups. The Jews formed cohesive communities and their suicide rates were much lower than among Catholics. Similarly it was proposed that the Jewish cohesiveness was keeping them away form alcoholism. The organic community gets drunk all together for specific ritual purposes. This prevents alcoholism from becoming perverted to individual uses. R. F. Bales wrote a doctoral thesis on the subject of Jewish temperance, predicts that the American Jews of today removed from traditions, will no longer be able to stay out of alcoholic wards.

In conclusion, it is the consequence of the siege on the Jews passed down from generation to generation, their desire to hold onto their senses, and their distaste for the irrational, that determines the limits of Jewish drinking.