One of the wonders of modern Jewish history is the way that certain fields of human activity have, for periods of time, been almost entirely the domain of Jews. This was true of psychoanalysis in early 20th-century Vienna, photography in much of pre-World War II Central Europe, the movie business in the early days of Hollywood, and, of course, the golden age of American musical theater. But then, writes Terry Teachout, there was Cole Porter:

From Rodgers and Hammerstein to Stephen Sondheim, virtually all of the great pre-rock Broadway songwriters were first- and second-generation Jews who were either born in New York or grew up there. None was observant, but they were all very much aware of their Jewish roots. Cole Porter was a rare exception to this rule. Like his admiring friend Irving Berlin, he wrote both the words and the music to his songs, but the two men had nothing else in common. Berlin had been born in the Pale of Settlement. Porter was the only child of a wealthy family of WASPs from Indiana and was groomed by his father to be a lawyer. But he studied music at Yale and decided to become a professional songwriter instead.

[One] of Porter’s songwriting fingerprints is hinted at in a remark he made to Richard Rodgers when he claimed to have discovered “the secret of writing hits. . . . I’ll write Jewish tunes.” Porter almost certainly had in mind his marked propensity to fluctuate at will between major and minor modes, a familiar characteristic of Jewish folk music. “I Love Paris,” for instance, begins in the minor key, then shifts to major with the suddenness of a sunrise as the singer explains that he loves Paris “every moment, . . . because my love is near.”

Yasir Arafat was often quoted as saying that his “strongest weapon is the womb of an Arab woman.” That is, he believed the high birthrates of both Palestinians and Arab Israelis ensured that Jews would eventually be a minority in the Land of Israel, at which point Arabs could call for a binational state and get an Arab one. Using similar logic, both Israelis and their self-styled sympathizers have made the case for territorial concessions to prevent such an eventuality. Yet, Yoram Ettinger argues, the statistics have year after year told a different story:

Contrary to the projections of the demographic establishment at the end of the 19th century and during the 1940s, Israel’s Jewish fertility rate is higher than those of all Muslim countries other than Iraq and the sub-Saharan Muslim countries. Based on the latest data, the Jewish fertility rate of 3.13 births per woman is higher than the 2.85 Arab rate (since 2016) and the 3.01 Arab-Muslim fertility rate (since 2020).

The Westernization of Arab demography is a product of ongoing urbanization and modernization, with an increase in the number of women enrolling in higher education and increased use of contraceptives. Far from facing a “demographic time bomb” in Judea and Samaria, the Jewish state enjoys a robust demographic tailwind, aided by immigration.

However, the demographic and policy-making establishment persists in echoing official Palestinian figures without auditing them, ignoring a 100-percent artificial inflation of those population numbers. This inflation is accomplished via the inclusion of overseas residents, double-counting Jerusalem Arabs and Israeli Arabs married to Arabs living in Judea and Samaria, an inflated birth rate, and deflated death rate.

The U.S. should derive much satisfaction from Israel’s demographic viability and therefore, Israel’s enhanced posture of deterrence, which is America’s top force- and dollar-multiplier in the Middle East and beyond.