Extensions of Remarks

May 15, 1979 EXTENSIONS OF REMARKS 11347 EXTENSIONS OF REMARKS RABBI SAMUEL STAHL ON being blamed for the rampant inflation and connected in some logical way by a higher EINSTEIN unemployment in post-war Germany. Ein power. Everything had to work according to stein was personally attacked as a Jew. Some a well-laid-out plan and there was nothing right-wing newspapers charged that his "chancy" about .the universe. Einstein once HON. HENRY B. GONZALEZ Theory of Relativity was a foul plot to dis made the comment: "God is clever, but He credit German science. A few intensely patri is never malicious." OF TEXAS otic German scientists wrote articles defam UNCOMPROMISING IDEALIST IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES ing the relativity theory as "Bolshevism in Physics" and "Jewish Mathematics". More Einstein had difficulty drawing a. close con Monday, May 14, 1979 and more Jewish students were being re nection between God and His human crea • Mr. GONZALEZ. Mr. Speaker, of the fused admission to the universities of Ger tions. However, Einstein was an outspoken many things that were uttered and many. He became convinced that the Jewish and an uncompromising crusader !or human printed concerning the great Albert Ein people needed a national home to preserve rights. He followed the admonition ot the and build their idealism and to secure a Ethics of the Fathers: "In a place where stein recently on the occasion of the place of refuge. there are no men, strive thou to be a man." centenary of his birth, the most eloquent Two years later, in 1921, Einstein toured He was not one to go along with majority and unique was the sermon by a great the United States at the invitation of Chaim opinion. He usually stood on the unpopular religious leader of San Antonio, Tex., of Weizmann, the Russian-born British chem side of issues. He fiercely opposed Germany's TP.mple Beth-El, one of the most vener ist who had become the acknowledged leader desire to put a.11 Europe in flames during able and venerated temples in the South of Zionism. One of his major missions was World War I. He denounced the madness of west if not the entire United States. to raise funds for the proposed Hebrew Uni Germany's war efforts. A document called Because of its unique perspective I be versity on Mt Scopus in Jerusalem. He gave "Manifesto to the Civilized World" was cir heart-felt support to the Hebrew University. culated among the scientists, philosophers, lieve sincerely it will interest every It held out a proinise to rekindle Jewish writers, musicians and artists in various American, whether Jewish or not. idealism. It also provided an outstanding German universities. It said that Germany I therefore, Mr. Speaker, offer the text education to Jewish students from Russia, had to go to war to prevent her own cte of this address at this point: Poland, Romania, and Germany, who were struction. It affirmed tha.t German milltar being rejected by schools of higher learning ism and German culture were interwoven. THE JUDAISM OF ALBERT EINSTEIN in their own countries because of their Recently, during a commercial for a bank, Most of the academicians signed the Mani Jewish identity. festo. Einstein read it and laughed. He called television viewers were told: "You don't have His dedication to Zionism deepened over to be an Einstein to understand our free Lt an "Epic in Lunacy." the years. In 1929, Arabs mercilessly killed As obsessed as Einstein was with peace, checking account system." The name Ein Jews in a massive blood-bath in Palestine, stein, in everyday conversation, is synony for a significant period of his life, he ceased to protest Jewish colonization there. Soon being a pacifist. He was convinced that Hit mous with genius. His discovery of the Theory after, he wrote the plea which was pub of Relativity, while stlll a patent clerk in lished in American and European news ler was such a threat and a menace that he ·Zurich, Switzerland, in the early 1900's, papers. He reminded readers of these periodi had to be stopped, even by force. Ironically, called attention to his towering intellec cals that Jews paid for every inch of the he, who from earliest childhood hated sol tual prowess. Fascinating to admirers was land of Palestine, that Jews and Arabs could diers, uniforms, and war and killing, as the mind of Albert Einstein. When he died, live together harmoniously as neighbors if sisted in the development of the most de doctors removed his brain for a study that these blood-thirsty gangsters were rooted structive weapon ever conceived by human still continues almost 24 years later. out, and that the ideals of Zionism deserved beings, an atomic bomb tha.t could eradi This year we mark the lOOth anniversary world support. cate the lives o! thousands of people in less of the birth of Albert Einstein. We remember The Holocaust further intensified his feel than a second. However, he understood that 1! America him not only for his phenomenal intellect, ings of Zionism. So identified was he with but also for his eccentricities and his ab Zionism that, in 1952, when President Chaim did not build an atomic bomb, Hitler would sent-mindedness. Once he used a check as Weizmann died, Einstein was invited to be gain possession of such a bomb and would a book mark and then lost the check. There come his successor. He declined on the inflict even more barbaric destruction on the was that time that he went on a trip with grounds that he had neither the time nor world. a bag packed by his wife but never opened the patience to perform the many ceremonial With his hatred of Hitler in mind, Einstein the bag. On one occasion, he helped a young roles incumbent upon a President of the wrote President Roosevelt to ask for full girl with her arithmetic problems and she State of Israel. government support for what became known got all the answers wrong. as "The Manhattan Project" culminating in Yet, though he never held any position of the construction of America's atom bomb. Many recall him as a kind, warm, fatherly responsibillty in the Zionist movement nor and bumble person, saintly but yet dishev Being a lover of peace, Albert was later in the government of the State of Israel, his distressed by tJhe horrors of atomic warfare. eled in appearance. So consumed was be by convictions were best expressed in his own his work that in everyday conversation with He was sickened by the awful explosions over words: "Palestine wm be a center of culture Nagasaki and Hiroshima. He recognized the him, he would appear removed, pre-occupied for all Jews, a refuge for the m06t grievously and distracted. serious dangers of nuclear build-up. The oppressed, a field o! action for the best United states was the first nation to have Albert Einstein was born, llved, and died among us, a unifying ideal, and a means of the atomic bomb. In the future, it had to a .Tew. Yet his Judaism was very complex. attaining inward health for the Jews of the exercise certain moral restraints with respect He was born to an assimilated family in whole world." to its use. Germany. They practiced little formal reli BELIEVER IN SPINOZisnc GOD He foresaw that the American monopoly gion and hardly ever attended synagogue. In Yet, Einstein was more than a secular na on the bomb would not last indefinitely. Soon their life style, they were more German than tionalist Jew. He was not a synagogue goer other nations would develop their own nu Jewish. nor a ceremonial practitioner. However, he clear weapons. Wars between nations with Albert Einstein imitated his parents to the had a deep faith in God. Einstein believed in nuclear weapons would mean global destruc extent that he, too, never observed the rites the God of Spinoza. Spinoza was excom tion. and ceremonies of Judaism. Yet his Jewish municated by the Jewish leadership of Am Einstein proposed that no one government identification was much more pronounced. sterdam in the 1600's for his heretical views. should hold tJhe secret to the bomb, but that As a Jew, he wm be remembered as a fervent Yet, liberal Jewish groups hail Spinoza for it should be the possession of a world govern Zionist, as a believer in a God-concept his theological insights. Jn fact, the Library ment association to be founded by the United fashioned by Spinoza, and as an uncompro of the Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati States, the Soviet Union, and Great Britain mising social ideallst. once contained a Spinoza Room, with many the only three powers with great military ZIONIST of Spinoza's writings. Spinoza believed that strength. Until 1919, when Einstein was 40, Einstein God revealed himself in the harmony of Only when these nations come to agree on was a universallst. He hated all nationalisms everything that exists. Yet this God, who ls the control of the atomic and hydrogen bomb and could never support the notion of a responsible for order in the world, is not a can international peace ever become a reality. Jewish homeland in Palestine. But con personal deity. He is not concerned with the Thus, as a Zionist, as a believer in a nat ditions in post-war Germany converted him thoughts and actions o! individual human uralist God, and as a pursuer or peace, Ein into a passionate Zionist. The anti-Semitism beings. Everything in the uni verse, from the stein distinguished himself as a Jew.

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