Einstein in Jerusalem
The name Einstein has become so inextricably linked in the public mind with the brilliant physicist who bore it, and the peerless genius he represents, that one almost never notices that it is just about the most Jewish name ever. Yes, Einstein was Jewish, and not only Jewish, but a Jew living in a most interesting time for his people, the age of Zionism's boom and of the Holocaust. And while Einstein never lived in Israel, he was sympathetic to the aims of socialist Zionism and keenly aware of both his personal Jewish identity and what it meant to be a Jew in his time (he dedicated a 1933 book of essays to the Jews of Germany).
Following the death of Chaim Weizmann, Einstein was offered the presidency of Israel, which he tactfully turned down - but he did leave the perpetual rights to his all his papers after his own death to the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, on whose Board of Governors he had served (an act which has proven to be a significant boon to the university through the years). So while Israel never prospered under President Einstein, his shadow looms particularly large in the country, a sort of favorite not-quite son.
"Einstein visited Israel in 1923," explains Professor Hanoch Gutfreund, chairman of The Hebrew University of Jerusalem's Einstein exhibits and - fittingly enough - a former physics professor, "And he helped found the Hebrew University."
The Bloomfield Science Museum, the premier educational children's museum in the city, is famed for allowing children to fully immerse themselves in interactive displays of scientific principles, and the museum is now applying its interactive approach to education with an exhibition honoring the life of Albert Einstein. The museum has collected papers and documents from the Hebrew University's archives as well as artifacts, photographs and films to put together an unprecedented journey through the life of one of history's greatest minds. Most helpful for everybody out there who never finished their theoretical physics courses are the exhibit's explanations of Einstein's advances and theories to the layman, and demonstrations of how his ideas continue to inform science and technology to this day.
According to Gutfreund, "This exhibit was first shown in the American Museum of Natural History in New York. We wanted to show Einstein not just as a man of science, but we wanted visitors to get a feel for his personality as we well, to show the man behind the science. When we brought the exhibit here, we retouched it for an Israeli audience. We made the exhibit- which was originally conceived in English - accessible to Hebrew and Arabic speaking audiences and added in elements of Einstein's Jewish connections, his Zionism and his connection to Hebrew University."
Basically, it's Einstein for the liberal arts crew. Can't argue with that.
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