Einstein on Israel and Zionism: His Provocative Ideas about the Middle East

We keep learning that the supposed morality of our fathers ( or Pirkei Avot) does not describe their actual history. Jerome has given us another welcome piece of the untold real story of Zionism. The Einstein of my childhood (the forties and early 50s) was the Dalai Lama of his day, a great humanitarian, humble being but also revolutionary scientist. He was not only thought of as a supporter of Israel but of other liberal causes. In the writings of revisionist historians, Israel, Zionism and the history of the Jews begins to look a lot different than what I was brought up on and what the Israeli propaganda machine wants the world, or at least, the US populace to believe. Jerome brings us many of Einstein's own writings and speeches on Zionism and Israel. While some of what Jerome offers is well known, the additional source material fleshes out Einstein's views. And though Jerome wants Einstein to speak for himself, Jerome's comments and placement of Einstein's utterance in context is what gives the book life beyond simply a resource for scholars. For myself I wish Jerome had put more of himself in the book. Einstein, of course, is an interesting character, but as he was wrong about Quantum Mechanics, and wrong for maybe 30 years, so too he was naïve about certain history, even the anti-Semitism through which he lived in the 1920s. While Einstein, the transnationalist, had doubts about Zionism's nationalism and even accused both Irgun and the Stern gang of being like the Nazi's, he somehow never seemed to unabashedly attack Jewish nationalism that treated the Arabs in ways akin to which the Jews had been. Yes, he uttered harsh words---calling Menachim Begin a Nazi---but his accusations never seemed to stick. He and Buber, and maybe Magnes wanted a binational state but that was never in the cards for the Zionists. When offered the Presidency of Israel, Einstein turned it down saying he was not qualified and would have to say things people did not want to hear. Still he did not use the occasion to criticize Israeli racism and ethnic cleaning. Einstein had a kind of garbled view of Jews, as nation, as culture, as race. I couldn't quite follow his reasoning. It seems limp. He saw people sticking together because of cultural/religious differences with others and thus different peoples could never live together. I can't figure it out. Einstein was the epitome of the "enlightenment" Jew and yet he criticized them. The assimilated German Jews of Einstein's era were much more interested in being German than Jewish, although some were torn, like Heine. After the defeat of Napoleon and the ensuing reaction when Jew were stripped of some Napoleonic rights, there were many conversions like Karl Marx's father. German Jews shared the German dislike of Eastern European peasants and from the 1880s to WWI facilitated the quiet transport of Ostjüden across Germany by packing them into cattle cars and hiding them in warehouses

This book is a collection of letters, notes, and other documents written or co-written by Albert Einstein regarding the creation of the Israeli state. It places Einstein in a context of being pro-Israel but anti-Zionism. He simultaneously supports a Jewish homeland while strongly urging cooperation and coexistence with the Palestinian people. Truly a great book and an important book for all interested in establishing peace in Palestine and Israel.

The conflict between Jews and Arabs in Palestine, which in Einstein's own lifetime was bitter and which has only grown sharper since, was not inevitable. So thought Albert Einstein at least. In "Einstein on Israel and Zionism", Fred Jerome has compiled a selection of Einstein's writings and speeches concerning the enterprise to create a Jewish state in Palestine. Zionism was controversial from the start, since it was clear that Palestine already had a number of inhabitants -- non-Jewish -- who could not reasonably be expected to welcome any effort naturally designed to dispossess them. Therefore, in their outward show the early Zionists very quickly ceased speaking of building a *state*, and instead spoke of creating a *homeland* for the Jews. From his earliest contact with Zionism in 1914 at the age of thirty-five, Einstein was supportive of the Jewish homeland concept. He did so for two major reasons. First, he felt that a Jewish homeland in Palestine would raise the self-esteem of Jews in the diaspora; and, second, he believed firmly that because of anti-Semitism Jews needed a place of refuge as a last resort against persecution. His primary concern is with Jews in the diaspora; at no time does he suppose that life in the diaspora is invalid or impossible. In 1927 he stated: "For me the importance of the Zionist work lies precisely in the effect it will have on those Jews who will not themselves live in Palestine" (p. 60) But what about the Arabs who were already living in Palestine, what effect will Zionism have on them? Einstein's view can be described as "cultural Zionism", the belief that in Palestine Jews could create an entity, a spiritual and intellectual center which would serve to foster Judaism as a culture, and Hebrew as a language, to unite Jews worldwide. In 1929: "It was a great achievement of Herzl to have realized and proclaimed...the establishment of a national home or, more accurately, a center in Palestine..." In this sense there is no question but that "Zionist" is a term that can justly be applied to Einstein. However, Einstein never favored the existence of Israel as a political state. In fact, his writings attest that he firmly and consistently throughout his life opposed political Zionism. But wasn't that what the movement begun by Herzl was all about? One gets the impression that at the beginning Einstein, it could almost be said, deceived himself about the actual Zionist goals; but as time wore on, the scales fell from his eyes. He came to see that Weizmann and the rest of the Zionists represented a Jewish chauvinism whose realization would render impossible any just rapprochement with the Arab inhabitants of Palestine -- and which in the end would fail. To Weizmann, 1929: "If we are not able to find a way to honest cooperation and honest pacts with the Arabs, then we have learned nothing in our two thousand years of suffering, and deserve the fate which will befall us" (p. 78). In this s

I thanked my friend a hundred times after he gave me this book. As a physicist, I hold Einstein dearly but I have always wondered about his stance on the State of Israel and its displacement of an indigenous population. I was pleasantly surprised by all the ideas and the foresightedness of Einstein, and saddened at how his compatriots at the time labeled him as naive and inexperienced, especially since his ideas couldn't appear to be more correct in light of the current situation in Israel/Palestine. A big plus is that this book provides translations from German of letters that Einstein has written, so it lets Einstein express his own views for himself. Therefore, I disagree with some of the reviewers who term this book as "propaganda", unless they are implying that Einstein's personal intent was propaganda.

We tend only to think about Einstein as defining energy and the atomic bomb. This book reveals much of the true character of this wonderful person.