einstein

Kinship
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
THE WANDERING ZIONIST
1920–1921
The motorcade in New York City, April 4, 1921
In the article he wrote for The Times of London after the confirmation of his relativity theory, Einstein quipped that if things went bad the Germans
would no longer consider him a compatriot but instead a Swiss Jew. It was a clever remark, made more so because Einstein knew, even then, that
there was an odious smell of truth to it. That very week, in a letter to his friend Paul Ehrenfest, he described the mood in Germany. “Anti-Semitism is
very strong here,” he wrote. “Where is this all supposed to lead?” 1
The rise of German anti-Semitism after World War I produced a counterreaction in Einstein: it made him identify more strongly with his Jewish
heritage and community. At one extreme were German Jews such as Fritz Haber, who did everything they could, including converting to
Christianity, to assimilate, and they urged Einstein to do the same. But Einstein took the opposite approach. Just when he was becoming famous,
he embraced the Zionist cause. He did not officially join any Zionist organization, nor for that matter did he belong to or worship at any synagogue.
But he cast his lot in favor of Jewish settlements in Palestine, a national identity among Jews everywhere, and the rejection of assimilationist
desires.
He was recruited by the pioneering Zionist leader Kurt Blumenfeld, who paid a call on Einstein in Berlin in early 1919. “With extreme naïveté he
asked questions,” Blumenfeld recalled. Among Einstein’s queries: With their spiritual and intellectual gifts, why should Jews be called on to create
an agricultural nation-state? Wasn’t nationalism the problem rather than the solution?
Eventually, Einstein came around to the cause. “I am, as a human being, an opponent of nationalism,” he declared. “But as a Jew, I am from
today a supporter of the Zionist effort.” 2 He also became, more specifically, an advocate for the creation of a new Jewish university in Palestine,
which eventually became Hebrew University in Jerusalem.
Once he decided to abandon the postulate that all forms of nationalism were bad, he found it easy to embrace Zionism with greater enthusiasm.
“One can be an internationalist without being indifferent to members of one’s tribe,” he wrote a friend in October 1919. “The Zionist cause is very
close to my heart ...I am glad that there should be a little patch of earth on which our kindred brethren are not considered aliens.” 3
His support for Zionism put Einstein at odds with assimilationists. In April 1920, he was invited to address a meeting of one such group that
emphasized its members’ loyalty to Germany, the German Citizens of the Jewish Faith. He replied by accusing them of trying to separate
themselves from the poorer and less polished eastern European Jews. “Can the ‘Aryan’ respect such pussyfooters?” he chided. 4
Privately declining the invitation was not enough. Einstein also felt compelled to write a public attack on those who tried to fit in by talking “about
religious faith instead of tribal affiliation.”* In particular, he scorned what he called “the assimilatory” approach that sought “to overcome anti-
Semitism by dropping nearly everything Jewish.” This never worked; indeed, it “appears somewhat comical to a non-Jew,” because the Jews are a
people set apart from others. “The psychological root of anti-Semitism lies in the fact that the Jews are a group of people unto themselves,” he
wrote. “Their Jewishness is visible in their physical appearance, and one notices their Jewish heritage in their intellectual work.” 5
The Jews who practiced and preached assimilation tended to be those who took pride in their German or western European heritage. At the
time (and through much of the twentieth century), they tended to look down on Jews from eastern Europe, such as Russia and Poland, who seemed
less polished, refined, and assimilated. Although Einstein was German Jewish, he was appalled by those from his background who would “draw a
sharp dividing line between eastern European Jews and western European Jews.” The approach was doomed to backfire against all Jews, he
argued, and it was not based on any true distinction. “Eastern European Jewry contains a rich potential of human talents and productive forces that
can well stand the comparison to the higher civilization of western European Jews.” 6
Einstein was acutely aware, even more than the assimilationists, that anti-Semitism was not the result of rational causes. “In Germany today
hatred of the Jews has taken on horrible expressions,” he wrote in early 1920. Part of the problem was that inflation was out of control. The German
mark had been worth about 12 cents at the beginning of 1919, which was half of its value from before the war but still manageable. But by the
beginning of 1920, the mark was worth a mere 2 cents, and collapsing further each month.
In addition, the loss of the war had been humiliating. Germany had lost 6 million men and then was forced into surrendering land containing half of
its natural resources, plus all of its overseas colonies. Many proud Germans believed it must have been the result of betrayal. The Weimar Republic
that had emerged after the war, though supported by liberals and pacifists and Jews such as Einstein, was disdained by much of the old order and