Sacred-text study and worldly neglect coexisted with Jewish capitalist aptitude.

Evidence

If Horkheimer and Adorno had chosen to go into the area of everyday life, they might have mentioned the role played by the rabbis, the deep respect for penetrating studies of sacred texts and religious, moral and ethical problems, the neglect of business matters and the essentials of daily life in favour of spiritual and religious mattersa neglect which contended with the talent for capitalist activity. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 364

Categorization

• SEED: An essay on how one minority can be accused of both worldliness and unworldliness at once — the structural impossibility of the antisemitic stereotype.
• CANDY: The image of rabbis absorbed in textual study while everyone else frets over business is a striking, quotable contrast.
• XREF: connects to: Jewish exceptionalism stems from valuing education and literacy, not superiority. — Jews are exceptional, not superior
• yield-rescued: below the book’s yield-target cutoff, included anyway for connecting to: Jewish exceptionalism stems from valuing education and literacy, not superiority. — Jews are exceptional, not superior