That's not surprising. Jews have traditionally been overrepresented in intellectual circles in Europe around that time. One of the major reasons for this is the antisemitism of preindustrial times: Jews had a hard time entering guilds, and they didn't own any land, so the only viable career paths for them were as merchants or scholars. Their success in these fields then triggered the next level of antisemitism, the 20th-century and contemporary alleged Jewish World Conspiracy.

As another example of how Jews were overrepresented in intellectual fields, the German science community, which had up to this point been among the leading ones in the world, took a serious blow in the 1930s and 1940s because all the Jewish scientists had to emigrate. It can be argued that Germany never quite recovered from that brain drain.

(Disclaimer: I'm not a historian. However, I'm German myself and have studied my country's history to a certain degree.)

> That's not surprising.

If it's so unsurprising, why does it keep being disparagingly referred to as a conspiracy theory?

> the only viable career paths for them were as merchants or scholars

Does instigating a civil war/revolution/coup fall under trade, or academia?