einstein
einstein
einstein
Create successful ePaper yourself
Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.
made him increasingly aware of his identity as a Jew. His reaction to the pervasive anti-Semitism was to feel even more connected—indeed,<br />
inextricably connected—to the culture and community of his people.<br />
Thus in 1921, he made a leap not of faith but of commitment. “I am really doing whatever I can for the brothers of my race who are treated so<br />
badly everywhere,” he wrote Maurice Solovine. 29 Next to his science, this would become his most important defining connection. As he would note<br />
near the end of his life, after declining the presidency of Israel, “My relationship to the Jewish people has become my strongest human tie.” 30<br />
One person who was not only astonished but dismayed by Einstein’s decision was his friend and colleague in Berlin, the chemist Fritz Haber,<br />
who had converted from Judaism and assiduously assimilated in order to appear a proper Prussian. Like other assimilationists, he was worried<br />
(understandably) that a visit by Einstein to the great wartime enemy at the behest of a Zionist organization would reinforce the belief that Jews had<br />
dual loyalties and were not good Germans.<br />
In addition, Haber had been thrilled that Einstein was planning to attend the Solvay Conference in Brussels, the first since the war. No other<br />
Germans had been invited, and his attendance was seen as a crucial step for the return of Germany to the larger scientific community.<br />
“People in this country will see this as evidence of the disloyalty of the Jews,” Haber wrote when he heard of Einstein’s decision to visit America.<br />
“You will certainly sacrifice the narrow basis upon which the existence of professors and students of the Jewish faith at German universities rests.” 31<br />
Haber apparently had the letter delivered by hand, and Einstein replied the same day. He took issue with Haber’s way of regarding Jews as<br />
being people “of the Jewish faith” and instead, once again, cast the identity as being inextricably a matter of ethnic kinship. “Despite my emphatic<br />
internationalist beliefs, I have always felt an obligation to stand up for my persecuted and morally oppressed tribal companions,” he said. “The<br />
prospect of establishing a Jewish university fills me with particular joy, having recently seen countless instances of perfidious and uncharitable<br />
treatment of splendid young Jews with attempts to deny their chances of education.” 32<br />
And so it was that the Einsteins sailed from Holland on March 21, 1921, for their first visit to America. To keep things unpretentious and<br />
inexpensive, Einstein had said he was willing to travel steerage. The request was not granted, and he was given a nice stateroom. He also asked<br />
that he and Elsa be given separate rooms, both aboard the ship and at the hotels, so that he could work while on the trip. That request was granted.<br />
It was, by all accounts, a pleasant Atlantic crossing, during which Einstein tried to explain relativity to Weizmann. Asked upon their arrival whether<br />
he understood the theory, Weizmann gave a delightful reply: “During the crossing, Einstein explained his theory to me every day, and by the time we<br />
arrived I was fully convinced that he really understands it.” 33<br />
When the ship pulled up to the Battery in lower Manhattan on the afternoon of April 2, Einstein was standing on the deck wearing a faded gray<br />
wool coat and a black felt hat that concealed some but not all of his now graying shock of hair. In one hand was a shiny briar pipe; the other clutched<br />
a worn violin case. “He looked like an artist,” the New York Times reported. “But underneath his shaggy locks was a scientific mind whose<br />
deductions have staggered the ablest intellects of Europe.” 34<br />
As soon as they were permitted, dozens of reporters and cameramen rushed aboard. The press officer of the Zionist organization told Einstein<br />
that he would have to attend a press conference. “I can’t do that,” he protested. “It’s like undressing in public.” 35 But he could, of course, and did.<br />
First he obediently followed directions for almost a half hour as the photographers and newsreel men ordered him and Elsa to strike a variety of<br />
poses. Then, in the captain’s cabin, he displayed more joy than reluctance as he conducted his first press briefing with all the wit and charm of a<br />
merry big-city mayor. “One could tell from his chuckling,” the reporter from the Philadelphia Public Ledger wrote, “that he enjoyed it.” 36 His<br />
questioners enjoyed it as well. The whole performance, sprinkled with quips and pithy answers, showed why Einstein was destined to become such<br />
a wildly popular celebrity.<br />
Speaking through an interpreter, Einstein began with a statement about his hope “to secure the support, both material and moral, of American<br />
Jewry for the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.” But the reporters were more interested in relativity, and the first questioner requested a onesentence<br />
description of the theory, a request that Einstein would face at almost every stop on his trip. “All of my life I have been trying to get it into<br />
one book,” he replied, “and he wants me to get it into one sentence!” Pressed to try, he provided a simple overview: “It is a theory of space and<br />
time as far as physics is concerned, which leads to a theory of gravitation.”<br />
What about those, especially in Germany, who attacked his theory? “No one of knowledge opposes my theory,” he answered. “Those physicists<br />
who do oppose the theory are animated by political motives.”<br />
What political motives? “Their attitude is largely due to antiSemitism,” he replied.<br />
The interpreter finally called the session to a close. “Well, I hope I have passed my examination,” Einstein concluded with a smile.<br />
As they were leaving, Elsa was asked if she understood relativity. “Oh, no, although he has explained it to me many times,” she replied. “But it is<br />
not necessary to my happiness.” 37<br />
Thousands of spectators, along with the fife and drum corps of the Jewish Legion, were waiting in Battery Park when the mayor and other<br />
dignitaries brought Einstein ashore on a police tugboat. As blue-and-white flags were waved, the crowd sang the Star-Spangled Banner and then<br />
the Zionist anthem Hatikvah.<br />
The Einsteins and Weizmanns intended to head directly to the Hotel Commodore in Midtown. Instead, their motorcade wound through the Jewish<br />
neighborhoods of the Lower East Side late into the evening. “Every car had its horn, and every horn was put in action,” Weizmann recalled. “We<br />
reached the Commodore at about 11:30, tired, hungry, thirsty and completely dazed.” 38<br />
The following day Einstein entertained a steady procession of visitors and, with what the Times called “an unusual impression of geniality,” he<br />
even held another press gathering. Why, he was asked, had he attracted such an unprecedented explosion of public interest? He professed to<br />
being puzzled himself. Perhaps a psychologist could determine why people who generally did not care for science had taken such an interest in<br />
him. “It seems psycho-pathological,” he said with a laugh. 39<br />
Weizmann and Einstein were officially welcomed later in the week at City Hall, where ten thousand excited spectators gathered in the park to<br />
hear the speeches. Weizmann got polite applause. But Einstein, who said nothing, got a “tumultuous greeting” when he was introduced. “As Dr.<br />
Einstein left,” the New York Evening Post reported, “he was lifted onto the shoulders of his colleagues and into the automobile, which passed in<br />
triumphal procession through a mass of waving banners and a roar of cheering voices.” 40<br />
One of Einstein’s visitors at the Commodore Hotel was a German immigrant physician named Max Talmey, whose name had been Max Talmud<br />
back when he was a poor student in Munich. This was the family friend who had first exposed the young Einstein to math and philosophy, and he<br />
was unsure whether the now famous scientist would remember him.<br />
Einstein did. “He had not seen me or corresponded with me for nineteen years,” Talmey later noted. “Yet as soon as I entered his room in the<br />
hotel, he exclaimed: ‘You distinguish yourself through eternal youth!’ ” 41 They chatted about their days in Munich and their paths since. Einstein<br />
invited Talmey back various times during the course of his visit, and before he left even went to Talmey’s apartment to meet his young daughters.<br />
Even though he spoke in German about abstruse theories or stood silent as Weizmann tried to cajole money for Jewish settlements in Palestine,