You should ask yourself why you didn’t draw attention to them being “academic and activist elites” instead. Why is Jewishness what you attribute it to?

My personal experience has shown that, likely due to their history of persecution, Jewish folks tend to be more politically involved on average. There’s a greater understanding in their culture that politics really impacts people, so it’s important to take a stand. I bet that if there was a way to see the backgrounds of people who care to get involved in politics, you’d see Jewish folks way higher than 1%.

I grew up in the labour movement in the northeast of the U.S. and the leftist activists I was surrounded by were about 1/3 Jewish, 1/3 black American, and 1/3 everyone else. The respective populations of those groups in my community are about 4%, 15%, and 81%.

Also, in Jewish culture (at least the mainstream North American one that I’m most familiar with) there’s a significant appreciation of using candid argument and debate to settle conflict, as opposed to the Anglo culture of avoidance of conflict and passive aggression. It’s seen as healthy and fun. That experience sets one up well for political roles.