page_title: Political views of Albert Einstein
section_title: Zionism
hierarchical_section_title: Political views of Albert Einstein / Zionism
caption_attribution_description: English: Albert Einstein and "leaders of the World Zionist Organization" published in the USA in 1921. Albert Einstein with his wife Elsa Einstein and other Zionist leaders, Menachem Ussishkin, Chaim Weizmann, Mrs. Vera Weizmann, and Ben-Zion Mossinson on arrival in New York, 1921 with SS Rotterdam.
context_page_description: Albert Einstein was widely known during his lifetime for his work with the theory of relativity and physics in general. He was also an important peace activist, a believer in a very limited form of world government and a socialist. His political opinions were of public interest through the middle of the 20th century due to his fame and involvement in political, humanitarian and academic projects around the world. He was often called upon to give judgments and opinions on matters often unrelated to theoretical physics or mathematics. Einstein's visible position in society allowed him to speak and write frankly, even provocatively, at a time when many people were silenced due to the rise of the Nazi movement.
context_section_description: Einstein was a prominent supporter of both Labor Zionism and efforts to encourage Jewish-Arab cooperation. He supported the creation of a Jewish national homeland in the British mandate of Palestine but was opposed to the idea of a Jewish state "with borders, an army, and a measure of temporal power." According to Marc Elis, Einstein declared himself a human being, a Jew, an opponent of nationalism, and a Zionist; he supported the idea of a Jewish homeland in Palestine but until summer 1947 conceived of this as a bi-national state with "continuously functioning, mixed, administrative, economic, and social organizations."
  Long before the emergence of Hitler I made the cause of Zionism mine because through it I saw a means of correcting a flagrant wrong....The Jewish people alone has for centuries been in the anomalous position of being victimized and hounded as a people, though bereft of all the rights and protections which even the smallest people normally has...Zionism offered the means of ending this discrimination. Through the return to the land to which they were bound by close historic ties...Jews sought to abolish their pariah status among peoples... The advent of Hitler underscored with a savage logic all the disastrous implications contained in the abnormal situation in which Jews found themselves. Millions of Jews perished... because there was no spot on the globe where they could find sanctuary...The Jewish survivors demand the right to dwell amid brothers, on the ancient soil of their fathers."Letter to Jawaharlal Nehru, Prime Minister of India, June 13, 1947
  His speeches and lectures about Zionism were published in 1931 by The Macmillan Company and eleven of these essays were collected in a 1933 book entitled Mein Weltbild and translated into English as The World as I See It; Einstein's foreword dedicates the collection "to the Jews of Germany". In the face of Germany's rising militarism, Einstein wrote and spoke for peace.
  Einstein publicly stated reservations about the proposal to partition the British mandate of Palestine into independent Arab and Jewish countries. In a 1938 speech, "Our Debt to Zionism", he said: "I should much rather see reasonable agreement with the Arabs on the basis of living together in peace than the creation of a Jewish state. My awareness of the essential nature of Judaism resists the idea of a Jewish state with borders, an army, and a measure of temporal power, no matter how modest. I am afraid of the inner damage Judaism will sustain—especially from the development of a narrow nationalism within our own ranks, against which we have already had to fight strongly, even without a Jewish state. ... If external necessity should after all compel us to assume this burden, let us bear it with tact and patience." His attitudes were nuanced: In his testimony before the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry in January 1946 he stated that he was not in favour of the creation of a Jewish state, while in a 1947 letter to Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru intended to persuade India to support Zionist aims of establishing a Jewish homeland in Palestine, Einstein stated that the Balfour Declaration's proposal to establish a national home for Jews in Palestine "redresses the balance" of justice and history, claiming that "at the end of the first world war, the Allies gave the Arabs 99% of the vast, underpopulated territories liberated from the Turks to satisfy their national aspirations and five independent Arab states were established. One per cent was reserved for the Jews in the land of their origin". Einstein remained strongly supportive of unlimited Jewish immigration to Palestine.
  The United Nations ultimately recommended division the mandate and the establishment of a Jewish State, and the 1948 Arab-Israeli war broke out as the mandate ended. Einstein was one of the authors of an open letter to the New York Times in 1948 deeply criticizing Menachem Begin's Herut (Freedom) Party for the Deir Yassin massacre (Einstein 1948) likening it to "the Nazi and Fascist parties" and stated "The Dei
caption: Albert Einstein, seen here with his wife Elsa Einstein and Zionist leaders, including future President of Israel Chaim Weizmann, his wife Dr. Vera Weizmann, Menahem Ussishkin, and Ben-Zion Mossinson on arrival in New York City in 1921.
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