Einstein on Israel and Zionism 1 FIGHTING ANTI-SEMITISM 1919-1929 November 2, 1917: The Balfour Declaration, supporting "a national home for the Jewish people" in Palestine, is approved by the British Cabinet, in the form of a letter from British foreign secretary Arthur James Balfour to Lord Walter Rothschild. 1919: The King-Crane Commission is assigned by U.S. president Woodrow Wilson to report on the Middle East. It finds that the majority of Arabs overwhelmingly oppose a Jewish homeland, fearing it will lead to an exclusively Jewish state; also that the Zionist plan would mean "a practically complete dispossession"1 of the Arabs in Palestine. The King-Crane Report is then ignored by England, France, and by Wilson. April 5, 1920: The San Remo Conference of World War I winners, under League of Nations auspices, "assigns" Britain as the Mandatory power over Palestine. 1921: The formation of Haganah is announced.
The Jewish underground military organization is to become the basis of the Israeli Defense Forces. 1922: As "suggested" by the San Remo Conference, the League of Nations gives Britain the Mandate for Palestine. The U.S. Congress and President Warren Harding approve the Balfour Declaration. The first British census of Palestine shows 757,182 people, 11 percent Jewish. The Palestinian Fifth National Congress votes in favor of an economic boycott of Zionists. 1924: The United States passes the Immigration Restriction Act, effectively banning immigration from Asia and Eastern Europe.
1925: The Hebrew University of Jerusalem officially opens. 1928: Britain recognizes the independence of Trans-jordan, which--by arrangement with the British--occupies most of the territory of the Palestine Mandate. A s the SS Rotterdam arrived in New York Harbor from Europe on April 2, 1921, New York State''s former governor Jimmy Walker and the city''s future mayor Fiorello LaGuardia were among the officials on hand to welcome the ship''s celebrity passengers, Albert Einstein and his (second) wife, Elsa. But when the ship docked,dozens of reporters unceremoniously pushed past the reception committee dignitaries and rushed onto the ship, flashbulbs popping, newsreel cameras grinding, and questions flying, mostly about the theory of relativity. It was Einstein''s first visit to the United States. The scientist had become the world''s first international media star less than two years earlier (eight years before Lindbergh). In May 1919, during a solar eclipse, British scientists had measured a deflection of starlight around the sun, thus confirming the general theory of relativity. It wasn''t long before the media and a war-weary world, hungry for peacetime heroes, discovered Einstein.
On November 7, the London Times announced: REVOLUTION IN SCIENCE, NEW THEORY OF THE UNIVERSE. NEWTONIAN IDEAS OVERTHROWN. Three days later, The New York Times joined in: LIGHTS ALL ASKEW IN THE HEAVENS, EINSTEIN THEORY TRIUMPHS In the next few years, Einstein would win the Nobel Prize, speak to audiences in scores of countries, and be honored and celebrated throughout the world. One trip would take the Einsteins to China, Japan, Palestine, and Spain, to be cheered by hundreds of thousands of people. In New York, several thousand people, besides the dignitary-packed reception committee, had come to see and cheer the suddenly famous scientist. The front page of the next morning''s New York Times headlined: EINSTEIN EXPLAINS RELATIVITY Thousands Wait Four Hours to Welcome Theorist and His Party to America2 Einstein had already begun his traveling and speaking--in Leyden, Prague and Vienna--but his arrival in New York marked his first trip outside of Europe, and for the moment, on the Rotterdam , he had his hands full with reporters: "Can you explain the Relativity Theory?" "Is it true that only a dozen people around the world can understand it?" Einstein denied the "rumor" that only twelve people in the world understood his theory, and did his best to provide a preliminary, popular explanation: "If you will not take the answer too seriously, and consider it only as a kind of joke, then I can explain it as follows: Formerly, people believed that if all material things disappeared from the Universe, time and space would be left. But according to the relativity theory, time and space disappear together with the other things." When Einstein had some trouble understanding and speaking in English, at first Elsa attempted to help, but when she didn''t do too well, either, Chaim Weizmann, president of the World Zionist Oranization, who was traveling with the Einsteins, volunteered to translate.
3 The Zionist leader was coming to the United States to raise funds for a Hebrew University in Jerusalem and to promote Zionism among American Jews,4 and Einstein had been persuaded to accompany Weizmann, although he had some hesitations about it. Einstein''s mixed feelings about the trip may be seen in two of his letters, written just a few weeks before departing. On March 8, he wrote to Maurice Solovine that he was "not going entirely willingly to America," but only tohelp raise money for the Hebrew University, adding: "I am to play the role of a little tin god and a decoy." And a day later, to Fritz Haber: "Of course, they don''t need me for my abilities but only because of my name [which] they hope will have a fair amount of success with the rich kinsmen of Dollar-land. Despite my emphatic internationalism, I believe I am always obliged to stand up for my persecuted and morally oppressed kinsmen."5 Einstein''s ambivalence about the trip with Weizmann extended--over the years--to his feelings about Weizmann himself,6 and--more to the point of this book--to Zionism in general. March 22, 1919 Excerpt from a Letter to Paul Ehrenfest At present, the political scene disappoints me very much . One doesn''t know where to look to find any joy in the activities of humankind.
The thing that makes me most happy is the realization of the Jewish stateb in Palestine. It seems to me that our fellow tribesmen are after all more sympathetic (or at least less brutal) than these abominable Europeans.7 December 30, 1919 On Jewish Immigration to Germany, 8 in Berliner Tageblatt Among the German public, voices are increasingly heard demanding legal measures against East European Jews. It isclaimed there are 70,000 Russian, i.e., East European Jews, in Berlin alo≠and these East European Jews are alleged to be profiteers, black marketeers, Bolsheviks, or elements that are averse to work. All these arguments call for the most sweeping measures, i.e.
, herding all immigrants into concentration camps or expelling them. Measures that devastate so many individuals must not be triggered by slogan-like assertions, even less so as objective re-examination has shown that we have here a case of agitation by demagogues. It does not reflect the actual situation and is not a suitable means for counteracting existing wrongs. Agitation against East European Jews in particular raises suspicion that calm judgment is being clouded by strong anti-Semitic instincts and, at the same time, that a specific method of influencing the mood of the people is chosen which diverts from the true problems and from the real causes of the general calamity. As far as is known, an official inquiry by the authorities that would undoubtedly reveal the invalidity of the accusations has not been conducted. It may very well be true that 70,000 Russians live in Berlin; but according to competent observers, only a small fraction of them are Jews, while the overwhelming majority are of German descent . According to authoritative estimates, not more than 15,000 Jews have immigrated from the East since the signing of the peace treaty. Almost without exception they were forced to flee by the horrible conditions in Poland and to seek refuge here until they are given an opportunity to emigrate elsewhere .
Let us hope that many of them will find a true homeland as free sons of the Jewish people in the newly established Jewish Palestine. It is quite likely that there are Bolshevik agents in Germany, but they undoubtedly hold foreign passports, have at their disposal ample funds, and cannot be arrested by any administrative measures. The big profiteers among the East European Jews have certainly, long ago, taken precautions to elude arrest by officials. The only ones affected would be those poor and unfortunate ones, who in recent months made their way to Germany under inhumane privations, in order to look for work here. Only these elements, certainly harmless to the German national economy, would fill the concentration camps, and there perish physically and spiritually. Then one will complain about the self-made "parasitic existences" who no longer know how to take their place in a normally functioning economy. The misguided policy of suddenly laying off thousands of East European Jewish laborers--who were coerced into coming to Germany during the war--and thus depriving them of their means of livelihood, leaving them with nothing to eat and systematically denying them job opportunities, has indeed forced people into the black market to ke.