That Jew won't hunt

After OneSTDV articulated his hypothesis that Jews are to blame for the spread of vegetarianism, Half Sigma angrily rejected it, asserting as unlikely that Jews are anymore disproportionately atop the vegetarian movement than they are at the tops of virtually every other movement on account of enjoying an average IQ advantage of nearly one standard deviation over white gentiles.

Half Sigma insinuates that Jews are basically no less carnivorous than the rest of the population is by referencing the GSS and pointing to a woman he guesses to be Jewish who writes about hunting (the latter being an odd single data point to refer to, since it is already serves as a sort of "exception that proves the rule" since the writer is female).

For what it's worth, IHTG pithily relays the impression I have:

Contemporary vegetarianism probably comes from the same place as environmentalism and hippie culture, the roots of which are not Jewish.

But Half Sigma's utilization of the GSS to bolster his view is suspect by way of omission. He writes:

In 1993 and 1994, the General Social Survey asked the question “And how often do you refuse to eat meat for moral or environmental reasons?” The majority of Jews responded “Never.”

That's accurate. However, it doesn't really address OneSTDV's point. By this metric, no group can be considered to have taken the lead so-to-speak in pushing any particular behavior or belief that is not undertaken by at least a sizable minority if not a majority of the larger population. Similarly specious arguments are made on behalf of protecting the blank-slate egalitarian myth on other fronts--most blacks don't commit violent crimes so criminality has nothing to do with race; most illegal immigrants aren't members of violent drug gangs, so immigration has nothing to do with the spread of gangs and drugs in the US, etc.

So let's consider the GSS more objectively. The following table shows the percentages of respondents who either "always" or "often" avoid eating meat for environmental or moral reasons by broad religious affiliation:

Religion	Avoids meat
Protestant	7.0%
Catholic	11.5%
Jewish	19.6%
None	14.9%
Other	20.5%

As of the mid-nineties, one-in-five Jews regularly avoided eating meat, compared to about one-in-nine Catholics and one-in-fourteen Protestants. There are undoubtedly some irreligious ethnically Jewish people who are classified here under "none" or "other" as well, but the proportions of those groups who avoid meat is similar to that of religiously affiliated Jews. The percentages by political orientation are 13.0% for liberals, 8.3% for moderates, and 8.6% for conservatives. While liberals are more apt to avoid meat than moderates and conservatives are, they are less likely to do so than Jews are. Judge for yourselves.

The GSS also asks respondents whether they or their spouses hunt. The survey has done this since its inception and continues to do so into the present. The following table shows the percentages of respondents who either hunt or have a spouse who does, again by broad religious affiliation:

Religion	Hunts
Protestant	22.6%
Catholic	18.9%
Jewish	2.6%
None	18.2%
Other	16.8%

Wow. Sample sizes are enormous here (n = 28,681).

Jews are more heavily concentrated in large cities than non-Jews are, but two-thirds live outside them in suburbs or in small towns (compared to four-fifths of the rest of the population), so that's only a partial explanation that still leaves a lot of ground to cover. OneSTDV is not far off the mark when he flatly states that "Jews do not hunt".

GSS variables used: RELIG, NOMEAT(1-2)(3-4), HUNT(1-3)(4), COMTYPE, POLVIEWS(1-3)(4)(5-7)