The myth of Israel Noble Prize Winning

People from the State of Israel have won 12 Nobel Prizes. 3 are peace prizes. One of the peace prizes went to one of Zionist terrorists who killed 17 Jews at the King David Hotel. Another of the peace prizes went to one of the Zionist commanders who sank the Altalena, killing 19 Jews.

Of the remaining 9 (one in literature, not science), 4 were born and educated elsewhere, but we'll ignore that. Switzerland, Austria, and Sweden which each have roughly the same population as Israel, have 27, 22, and 32 prizes respectively.  The Netherlands, which is double the population as Israel, has 21 prizes. Denmark, which has half the population of Israel has 13 prizes. So the claim that Israel "punches above its weight on Nobel prizes" is just plain false. [This claim was made by an otherwise excellent article that defended Charedim in Israel.] If you want to argue that the Nobel Prize was started before the State of Israel was founded, Switzerland has won 16 prizes (all in science) since 1948. That’s double the amount per capita won by people in Israel, including four who were born and educated in other countries. Sweden has won 20 Nobel Prizes since 1948. 

Jews comprise 20% of Nobel prize winners. That means 178 Nobel prizes (of 889) have gone to Jews. (This includes some that have a Jewish father, which I realize doesn't make them halachically Jewish. The same definition applies within Israel and outside of Israel.). So in fact, given that half of the world's Jews live in Israel, Israel does very poorly in Nobel prizes. Jews outside of Israel won 166 Nobel prizes. Jews in Israel have won 12 (that includes 2 terrorists). Jews outside of Israel earn Nobel prizes at a far, far higher rate than Jews in Israel. Something about Israeli society actually holds Jews back. You are welcome to hypothesize what it is. Whatever your analysis, I wouldn’t go around bragging about people in Israel winning Nobel prizes.