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Einstein's Zionist
beginnings
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"Herr
Einstein is an Israelite"
Einstein's Early Religio-National
Identity
1900
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The recent graduate
He could get no academic position so took
on private students
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Einstein graduates. Rejected
for academic research, he gets teaching jobs.
Having antagonized his professors he is unable to obtain an academic position.
He supports himself tutoring and as secondary school teacher of mathematics
and physics. During his first year a professor had told him "You are
an intelligent lad, Einstein, a thoroughly intelligent lad. But you have
one great defect: No one can tell you anything!" |
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The "Olympiad"
Conrad Habicht, Maurice Solovine
-- Einstein's friends-for-life, recipients of many of his letters
on Zionism, as well as other subjects.
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1901
Einstein has difficulty launching his career. Mileva writes a friend that Albert is unlikley to "get a secure position soon" as...
My sweetheart has a very wicked tongue and is a Jew in the bargain.
Nov/Dec 1901 Letter from Mileva to Helena Savic' in Jurgen Neffe, Einstein, A Biography pg. 313
Einstein gets a job in Swiss
patent office
after becoming Swiss citizen
Patent clerk Einstein
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Jewish
National Fund (JNF) established by 5th Zionist Congress
Its purpose: to buy land
Collecting pennies to buy a homeland
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OTTOMAN EMPIRE:
May 17
Theodor Herzl meets Ottoman Emperor Abdul-Hamid
II
Zionist founder make case for a Jewish homeland in the province of Palestine.
Abdul-Hamid has no interest in fostering another nationalism to weaken
his empire.
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1902
AUSTRO-HUNGARIAN EMPIRE:
Illegitimate daughter born to Mileva Maric and Einstein
Mileva sees little of Einstein during her pregnancy
and he learns of Liserl's birth by letter, born in January.
Einstein and Mileva's daughter Liserl disappears from
history.
The child was presumably put up for adoption. She is
never mentioned again in Einstein's correspondence.
GERMAN EMPIRE:
Chaim Weizmann promotes the Zionist project of creating
a university in Jerusalem in Die Judische Hochschule, a pamphlet
coauthored with Martin Buber and Berthold Feivel.
A Zionist publishing house founded
Chaim Weizmann (center, wearing
bowler hat) future Zionist leader and Einstein intimate, here
with founders of Judischer Verlag . Weizmann promoted
the idea of creating a Jerusalem university. It became Einstein's
primary Zionist focus.
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Richard Lichtheim
Editor of German Zionist paper DIe
Welt . In his memoir Lichtheim describes precisely Einstein's
view that the most important aspect of Zionism would be its effect
on the psyche of the individual. The upbuilding of the homeland
would imbue Jews around the world with, what Einstein called "a
justifiable pride" that would allow them to feel themselves
on a par with other peoples of the world.
Lichtheim and family
Zionist emissary to Constantinople during
WWI
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Editor
Richard Lichtheim articulates same view of Zionism as Einstein:
Zionism
is Self-Healing
Here
were the answers to all the questions that I had been asking myself
and my circle for years: not through assimilation or baptism,
but through one's own actions in one's own land would the relations
between Jews and other peoples be normalized...Not the imitation
of the strange manners,...of the English gentiles, the Prussian
junker [aristocrat] or European social types could produce the
solution to the personal problems that every Jew carried around
within himself....This solution must come from within, from one's
own nature. Here, finally, and only here, in Zionism, could the
Jewish personality unfold free and unbroken...The acceptance of
Zionism was thus the acceptance of myself.
Richard Lichtheim memoir cited
in Ruth Gay, The Jews of Germany: A Historical Portrait Yale University
Press New Haven 1992
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1903
GERMAN EMPIRE:
Einstein and Mileva Maric marry.
When once asked whether Jews and non-Jews should
marry Einstein replied with a laugh, " It's dangerous -- but
then all marriages are dangerous!"
Roger Highfiled, Einstein When
He's at Home in My Einstein, ed John Brokman
By the time they divorce eighteen years later, following years of separation,
Einstein will be speaking quite harshly of the woman to whom he once wrote
passionate love letters. ( Example: " an unfriendly humorless creature
who herself has nothing from life and who undermines others' joy of living
through her mere presence."
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Albert and Mileva
Married January 6, 1903 in Berne,
Switzerland in a civil ceremony with Albert's "Olympiad"
friends Conrad Habicht and Maurice Solovine as witnesses.
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RUSSIAN EMPIRE:
More Pogroms
First Kishinev Pogrom: An extended campaign of anti-Semitic
newspaper articles culminating in a blood libel charge of ritual murder
led the incensed mob to riot against the Jews for three days starting
on Easter Sunday. A second Kishinev pogrom two years later nearly emptied
the town of Jews.
The anti-Jewish riots in Kishinev,
Bessarabia, are worse than the censor will permit to publish.
There was a well laid-out plain for the general massacre of
Jews on the day following the Russian Easter. The mob was led
by priests, and the general cry, "Kill the Jews," was taken
up all over the city. The Jews were taken wholly unaware and
were slaughtered like sheep. The dead number 120 and the injured
about 500. The scenes of horror attending this massacre are
beyond description. Babes were literally torn to pieces by the
frenzied and bloodthirsty mob. The local police made no attempt
to check the reign of terror. At sunset the streets were piled
with corpses and wounded. Those who could make their escape
fled in terror, and the city is now practically deserted of
Jews."
Jewish Massacre Denounced," New York
Times, April 28, 1903, HP 6
On April 6, 1903, a mob
of teenage ruffians, undoubtedly acting upon a given signal, rushed through
the city streets to attack and loot Jewish stores and homes,”
records historian Howard Sachar. “In the evening, looting gave
way to killing. For nearly 24 hours, while the local police studiously
avoided leaving their barracks, Jews were hunted down and murdered.”
The Russian peasantry felt an overpowering
resentment towards Jews because “the Jew will not work in the field
or engage in agriculture,” Count Cassini, the Russian ambassador
to America, explained to the New York Times in May 1903. “In this
capacity, he takes advantage of the Russian peasant, whom he soon has
in his power, and ultimately destroys.”
The pogrom sparked a second wave of anti-Semitic
violence in Russia, succeeding the first wave that followed the assassination
of Czar Alexander II in 1881. Forbidden from taking any measures of self-defence,
many of the murdered men, women and children in Kishinev had been savagely
hacked to death. |
Some who survived the Kishinev Pogrom
April 6 - 7: 49 Jews murdered, more than 500 injured,
700 houses looted and destroyed, 600 businesses looted, 2,000 families left
homeless |
.jpg)
Some who did not
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Count Plehve Interior Minister
responsible for Kishinev pogrom
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Reactionary "Union of the
Russian Nation" (known as the "Black Hundreds")
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Within months, similar riots erupted in Gomel, Mogilev and
other cities. Dozens of similar disturbances occurred across Ukraine and
Bessarabia in 1904 (Smela, Rovno, Aleksandriya), 1905 (Kishinev, Feodosiya,
Melitopol, Zhitomir, Odessa, Yekaterinoslav, Kiev) and 1906 (Bialystok,
Siedlce) with escalating casualties. Attacks in 64 towns and 626 townlets
and villages. (Encyclopedia Judaica),
Jewish
self-defense, a novel phenomenon emerges
Primarily young men from the
town of Homel organized by Israel Shochat. Those who immigrate to Palestine will bring with them the rare (though not unheard of) will and ability to defend themselves from violence. |
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1903
Terrible
pogroms have taken place this week in Homel and Zablatov. The
attacks on Jews have been so awful that even official Russian
papers have reported on them, although these reports have played
down the number of casualties. Filtering through Berlin and
London are more accurate reports that indicate that dozens of
Jews have been killed and hundreds wounded. More than 300 homes
of poor Jews have been destroyed. The report from Berlin also
notes that the Jews attempted to defend themselves but were
bnable to hold out against the pogromists, who were joined by
both the local police and soldiers.
Report
in New
York Jewish Daily Forward
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1903 Chisinau, capital
of Moldavia
Triggered by the killing of a boy in Dubossary.
The anti-Semitic press put the blame for his death on the Jewish
community that, in their words, had done that for the sake of
religious rituals. Forty-nine Jews were killed, more than five
hundred were injured, and over one thousand houses and shops were
looted in those riots.
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| 1904 |
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GERMAN EMPIRE:
Einstein with first son Hans Albert
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AUSTRO-HUNGARIAN EMPIRE:
July 3
Theodore Herzl dies in Vienna
September 1904 edition of Judische Rundschau,
official organ of the Zionist Organization for Germany, commemorates
Herzl's passing. Einstein contributed essays to its pages two
decades later.
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RUSSIAN EMPIRE:
Czar Nicholas II Policy to Repress Dissent:
Attack Japan abroad, attack Jews at home
Czar Nicholas II
Succeeds Czar Alexander III in 1894
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July
Anti-Semitic Russian Minister of Interior von Plehve is assassinated.
Czar's reactionary ministers
concoct hoax: a Jewish plot to rule the world
Fearful that the czar may cave in under pressure for reform which would
threaten their hereditary privileges, the czar's reactionary ministers
concoct a hoax. With help of the Okhranka secret police they
forge a booklet pretending to reveal that the movement for reform is part
of a larger secret plot by Jews to control the world. The anonymous booklet
purports to present secret conversations in which Jewish elders lay out
their strategy. The booklet "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion"
takes on a life of its own and is quickly translated and distributed in
many countries.
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| The Protocols of the
Elders of Zion
The Czar's secret police forge a document
that "proves" agitation for reform is secretly a malevolent
Jewish plot to rule the world. Audiences in other countries
are quick to buy into the hoax.
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| "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" appears
in French translation |
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BRITAIN:
Zionists: Refuge for Jews is urgent. Brits
propose Uganda.
Zionists decline. Responding to the urgent need of
refugee Jews fleeing Russian pogroms the government of British Prime Minister
Arthur Balfour offers the Zionist Congress a homeland for Jews -- in Uganda.
Zionists: No thanks. Only our ancestral homeland
will do.
Following spirited debate the Zionist delegates vote
that no place but Palestine, the ancestral homeland.
PALESTINE:
Second Aliyah of Jewish Immigration (1904-1914)
Pioneers of the Second Aliya
Farming in the Galilee
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The new round of anti-Semitic violence
in Russia leads to a second wave of immigration to Palestine. Deeply influenced
by socialist movements in Russia, they see themselves as part of an international
socialist awakening, but with a national agenda particular to their people's
"unnatural" situation in the world. They lived spartan lives
dedicated to "self-labor" and reclamation of inhospitable soil.
The group includes most of the future state's founding fathers and establishes
most of the institutions that characterized early Zionist development,
such as collective farms (kibbutzim). They make ancient Hebrew into a
language of daily use and found Tel Aviv on a sand dune north of Jaffa.
The first Jewish militias for self-defense are formed to guard the settlements
from marauding Bedouin. Einstein thought very highly of their achievements.
Meanwhile, stirrings of Arab nationalism
Al-Fata ("The Girl", not to be confused
with al-Fatah)
A small group of intellectuals in Southern Syria begin propounding a free
Arab state, independent from Ottoman oppression.
1905
SWITZERLAND:
Einstein's miracle year
At age 25 Einstein publishes three of his most important
papers - on quantum theory, Brownian motion, and special relativity. He
also completes most of the work for his doctoral degree (which he will
receive the following year). In subsequent years, he will expand his theory
of special relativity to account for accelerating frames of reference,
so that he can then theorize that the laws of physics (including both
mechanics and electrodynamics) are the same for all observers in all frames
of reference. This theory, known as General Relativity, will be fully
formulated by 1915.
RUSSIAN EMPIRE:
REVOLUTION SUPPRESSED
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Orgy of violence against Jews: Hundreds of pogroms
in Ukraine, Poland, Lithuania.
Blamed for Russia's defeat by Japan, extermination
of the Jews becomes overt program of Russian ultranationalist "Black
Hundreds". In October the czar's government approves attacks on Jews
in more than 300 towns and cities. Almost a thousand people are killed,
many thousands wounded.
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Odessa Pogrom
The Black Hundreds, blaming Jews for Russia's huniliation by Japan, rampage against Jews, killing 300 and
left thousands wounded.
Battleship Potemkin steams into Odessa harbor flying the red flag.
Mutinies spread through the navy, but the leaderless revolution
of 1905 is put down.
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Yektarina Pogrom
Victims were mostly Jewish children
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OTTOMAN EMPIRE:
"The Awakening of the Arab Nation in Turkish
Asia" published
Christian writer Najib Azouri denounces Ottoman oppression,
calls for an Arab state from Euphrates to Suez. He warns that Arab and
Jewish nationalisms are bound to conflict"
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Two important
phenomena, of the same nature but opposed, are emerging at this
moment in Asiatic Turkey. They are the awakening of the Arab
nation and the latent effort of the Jews to reconstitute on
a very large scale the ancient kingdom of Israel. These movements
are destined to fight each other continually until one of them
wins.
Najib Azouri, The Awakening of the Arab Nation
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1906
RUSSIAN EMPIRE:
June 1-3
Bialystock Pogrom - up to 100 Jews murdered
Hundreds
of hooligans armed with crowbars, knives and axes, escorted
by police and soldiers, fanned out into the center of the
city, smashing doors and windows of houses and stores, looting
and pillaging everything in sight. The unarmed Jewish population,
terrified by these murderous acts, ran for cover in airless
cellars and attics, where they hid for the entire three days,
hungry and prostrate, anticipating death at any moment. The
sound of gunfire echoed throughout the city. Armed soldiers
and police went shooting in the streets and houses while bandits
broke into and robbed the store particularly grim scene unfolded
at the Bialystok railroad station, where hooligans helped
by the railroad personnel killed many Jewish passengers arriving
on the train. The stationmaster laughed at this tragic scene
The Jewish Daily Forward
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1907
SWITZERLAND:
Einstein has the "happiest thought of my
life"
realizing that everything happens the same in a uniformly
accelerating system as in a system subject to a constant gravitational
field. And it is even possible to predict unexpected physical phenomena
from this, e.g., the bending of light rays in strong gravitational fields
and a gravitational contribution to time-dilation (gravitational red shift).
1908
SWITZERLAND
Einstein becomes privatdozent at University
of Bern while continuing work at patent office.
The position entitles him to offer classes through
the school and to directly charge students tuition
OTTOMAN EMPIRE:
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Sultan Abdul-Hamid
II
The last sultan to rule absolutely. He was known as "The Red Sultan" for the Armenian genocide during his rule.
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Enver Bey
Leader of the "Young Turks"
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"Young Turks" come to power in Turkey:
They demand restoration of 1876 constitution. Sultan eventually gives
in. Parliament reinstituted. Young Turks gain power.
Despite their jaunty name, under
the "Young Turks" the formerly tolerant Ottoman Empire begins
overtly discriminating against its non-Turkish inhabitants, even fellow
Muslims. Arabic language is banned, its teaching in schools prohibited.
Independence-minded Arab intellectuals in Beirut and Damascus are jailed.
Turkish construction of the Hijaz Railway from Damascus to Mecca raises
Arab suspicions that Ottomans intend to rush troops to the Arab heartland.
Sharif Hussein is appointed Guardian of Mecca,
Medina --
Islam's two holiest sites, in Arabian peninsula.
The position is contested by the al-Saud clan.
Sharif Hussein
Descendant of the Prophet Muhammad,
Guardian of the Holy Sites in Mecca and Medina, he becomes a
rallying point for Arab independence from the Ottoman Turkish
rule. The Turks kept him under house arrest in Istanbul.
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OTTOMAN EMPIRE, PALESTINE DISTRICT:
Arthur Ruppin
Zionist Land Office established to purchase
land for Jewish settlements
Its director, Arthur Ruppin, a Prussian-born economist
and sociologist, promotes kibbutz as most efficient use of limited Jewish
National Fund land-purchase money. He will negotiate acquisition of the
Mount Scopus estate of British lawyer Grey-Hill
as a site for the Hebrew University to which
Einstein was dedicated. Ruppin later became professor of sociology of
the Jews in the University.
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Palestinian
effendi (landowner) and fellah (tenant
farmer) (1930s photo)
In many cases land is purchased from absentee Arab owners and tenant
farmers are displaced.
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ELSEWHERE IN MIDDLE EAST:
Oil discovered in Persia
1909
SWITZERLAND:
Einstein is considered for new position at University
of Zurich
His former Physics professor Alfred Kleiner
proposes a new associate professorship in theoretical physics be created
at U of Zurich. Faculty has concerns that "Herr Einstein is an Israelite".
University of Zurich faculty secret assessment:
Herr Dr Einstein is an Israelite
and since precisely to the Israelites among scholars are ascribed
(in numerous cases not entirely without cause) all kinds of
unpleasant peculiarities of character, such as intrusiveness,
impudence, and a shopkeeper's mentality* in the perception
of their academic position.
Faculty search committee secret assessment
of Albert Einstein
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Also in the running
Freidrich Adler, Einstein's classmate
at ETH, is also under consideration for the Zurich asst. professorship.
Adler withdraws, citing Einstein's superior qualifications. Son
of Viktor Adler, founder of Austria's liberal Social Democrats,
Freidrich assassinated Count Karl von Sturgkh, Austria's arch-conservative
Minister-President. Condemned to death, Einstein successfully interceded on his behalf and helped win Adler's eventual pardon.
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Einstein leaves Patent Office
for Zurich Professorship
At age of 30 Einstein leaves patent office, relocates to Zurich after
the Zurich search committee is reassured by Kleiner that Einstein's character
is free from disagreeable "qualities which are usually considered
as specifically Jewish" and offers him a position.
OTTOMAN EMPIRE, PALESTINE DISTRICT:
Tel Aviv founded, the first Jewish city of modern times
laid out by 60 families on a coastal sand dune north
of Jaffa. Einstein visits the vibrant city in 1922.
Tel Aviv Founders gather to draw lots for their future plots.
Einstein will become the city's first honorary
citizen of what will become a bustling town just 13 years
later.
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