chosen people

Interesting, provocative title for the jewish people, considering the suffering they've done over the last few thousand years (and how deeply ingrained that is in our collective psyche).
I'm trying to understand what that means to be chosen, but will admit it's rather far away from any kind of grounded theory, and so the following is just a tangible manifestation of my analysis of what it means to be chosen, for surely chosen also means to be chosen to suffer for the good of humanity or in order to help facilitate/advance/redefine the new global community.

Case I: The holocaust, the single defining moment of 20th century jewry

Don't forget, Germany did not lose WW II by that much. More so, it was hitler's megalomania that drove the nazi war machine to overextend itself, weakening itself to the point of defeat. Many critics point to germany's decision to invade Russia, thus violating a nonaggression act (which was probably understood to be temporary as fascism and communism have to square off eventually, even if both regimes were really just mascarading totalitarians) and opening up a second front. Rather than being able to allocate one's resources to one front, the germans found themselves middled--overextended in both directions.
What seldom, if ever, gets discussed is the fact that the nazis had already opened up a second front with their systematic genocide of jews and other undesirables. Think about the amount of resources, manpower, energy that was poured into the mass killings of jews. It's tantamount to fighting a third front.
In other words, the jews were chosen to suffer as part of resisting and ultimately defeating the nazis.
Also, remember that the race to atomic weaponry was in high gear; the number of jewish (and politically opposed) intellectuals and scientists, some of whom were instrumental in developing nuclear weapons, that hitler drove from the fatherland could have been the difference, especially if he could have found a way to exploit their genius and develop nuclear weapons first.

So, that's the suffering for the good of humanity part; as for advancing/redefining the new global community, the holocaust led directly to the miracle of Israel...but we'll save that for another time.