page_title: Military history of Jewish Americans
section_title: Jewish scientists and the Manhattan Project
hierarchical_section_title: Military history of Jewish Americans / Participation by war / World War II / Jewish scientists and the Manhattan Project
caption_attribution_description: English: Physicist Leo Szilard. Probably circa 1960. DOE Digital Archive Image 2017774. "Credit: DOE Photo"
context_page_description: Jewish Americans have served in the United States armed forces dating back to before the colonial era, when Jews had served in militias of the Thirteen Colonies. Jewish military personnel have served in all branches of the armed forces and in every major armed conflict to which the United States has been involved. According to the U.S. Department of Defense, as of 2006 there were currently 3,973 known Jewish servicemen and servicewomen on active duty.
  A number of Jewish American servicemen have gained fame due to their military service, and many have received awards and decorations for distinguished service, valor, or heroism. More than 20 Jewish servicemen were awarded the military's highest award, the Medal of Honor. Many other American Jews who served in the military later achieved prominence in business, politics, science, entertainment and other fields. Foreign Jews have also been significant in the development of military science and technology – including physicists Albert Einstein, J. Robert Oppenheimer, Richard Feynman, and Edward Teller, who were important in the Manhattan Project, which led to the development of the first nuclear weapons.
context_section_description: America's rise as a nuclear power resulted directly from the Manhattan Project, codename for a project during World War II to develop the first atomic bombs for wartime use. The project's roots began in 1939 when, at the urging of Leó Szilárd, Albert Einstein signed the Einstein–Szilárd letter to US president Franklin D. Roosevelt expressing his concerns that Nazi Germany may be trying to develop nuclear weapons.
  Albert Einstein (1879–1955) was a theoretical physicist and philosopher, widely regarded as one of the most influential and best known scientists and intellectuals of all time. A German-Swiss Nobel laureate, Einstein is often regarded as the father of modern physics. His father was Hermann Einstein, a salesman and engineer. His mother was Pauline Einstein (née Koch). The Einsteins were non-observant Jews.
  In 1933, Einstein was compelled to immigrate to the United States due to the rise to power of the Nazis under Germany's new chancellor, Adolf Hitler. While visiting American universities in April 1933, he learned that the new German government had passed a law barring Jews from holding any official positions, including teaching at universities. A month later, the Nazi book burnings occurred, with Einstein's works being among those burnt, and Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels proclaimed, "Jewish intellectualism is dead." Einstein also learned that his name was on a list of assassination targets, with a "$5,000 bounty on his head". One German magazine included him in a list of enemies of the German regime with the phrase, "not yet hanged".
  Leó Szilárd (1898–1964) was a Jewish Hungarian physicist who conceived the nuclear chain reaction in 1933, patented the idea of a nuclear reactor with Enrico Fermi, and in late 1939 wrote the letter for Albert Einstein's signature that resulted in the Manhattan Project that built the atomic bomb. Szilárd left Hungary because of the rising antisemitism under the Horthy regime, which excluded Jewish students from Hungary's universities.
  Szilárd was directly responsible for the creation of the Manhattan Project. He drafted a confidential letter to Franklin D. Roosevelt explaining the possibility of nuclear weapons, warning of Nazi work on such weapons and encouraging the US development of a program to create them. During August 1939 he approached his old friend and collaborator Albert Einstein and convinced him to sign the letter, lending his fame to the proposal. The Einstein–Szilárd letter resulted in the establishment of research into nuclear fission by the U.S. government and ultimately to the creation of the Manhattan Project; FDR gave the letter to an aide, General Edwin M. "Pa" Watson with the instruction: "Pa, this requires action!" Later, Szilárd relocated to the University of Chicago to continue work on the project. There, along with Fermi, he helped to construct the first "neutronic reactor", a uranium and graphite "atomic pile" in which the first self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction was achieved, during 1942. Szilárd became a naturalized citizen of the United States during 1943.
  J. Robert Oppenheimer (1904–1967) was appointed the scientific director of the Manhattan Project, the World War II project that developed the first nuclear weapons.  He is often referred to as the "father of the atomic bomb". Oppenheimer was born to Julius S. Oppenheimer, who had immigrated to the United States from Germany in 1888 with his parents and become a wealthy Jewish textile importer, and Ella Friedman, a painter.
  Among other German scientists forced to flee Germany were fourteen Nobel laureates and 26 of the 60 professors of theoretical physics in the country. Among the scientists who came to the United States or its Allies were Edward Teller, Niels Bohr, Enrico Fermi, Otto Stern, Victor Weisskopf, Hans Bethe, and Lise Meitner, many of whom worked to ensure that the Allies would develop nuclear weapons before the Nazis. With so many Jewish scientists forced to live in the United States, where they often worked together, Einstein wrote to a friend, "For me the most beautiful t
caption: Leó Szilárd driving force to create the Manhattan Project authored the Einstein–Szilárd letter signed by Albert Einstein
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