| Childhood - Schooling,
Marriage, Fatherhood |
| Two
New Words: "Anti-Semitism" and "Pogrom" |
| Einstein's
Life, as the Zionist Movement Takes Shape |
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| 1879 |
| GERMAN
EMPIRE |
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14 March
A son is born to Herman and Pauline Einstein in
Ulm, Wurttembe. They name him Albert.
Thoroughly modern Herman and
Pauline are proud that they do not observe Jewish religious rites at home.
Religious matters are of no interest to them. (Pais,
Abraham, Subtle is the Lord: The Science and the
Life of Albert Einstein, Oxford University Press 1982. pg. 36)
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Einstein's
Parents
Hermann and Pauline Einstein (nee
Koch)
Married in a small town synagogue on August
8, 1876. Three years later they name their first son Albert, after
his grandfather Abraham. The birth certificate noted that both
mother and father were of the "Israelitic faith".
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Earliest
photo of Einstein
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Born the same year as Einstein:
The word "Anti-Semitism"
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Coined
by German politician Wilhelm Marr in his 1879 pamphlet The War Between
Jewishness and Germaness. Marr intended his new word to update the
current phrase Judenhass -- "Jew-hatred". The older term
suggests a medieval, theological perspective. Marr wished to substitute
a more modern, "scientific" term. No longer were Jews to be
excluded from German society because they rejected Christ. In the new
thinking Jews could never be assimilated because they were genetically
incompatible with German people. (The pseudoscientific, imprecise term always
referred only to Jews. It took no account of Arabs
or other Semitic language peoples).
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| 1880 |
Einstein family moves to Munich.
Hermann and his younger brother Jackob start a gas and water installation
business. A few years later they sell and install electric generators. Uncle
Jacob will introduce Albert to pleasure of solving
math problems. |
Hermann and Paula have daughter.
Albert's new sister is named Maria, a Christian
name unthinkable for a Jewish girl prior to Emancipation. She is known
to family as Maja.
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| RUSSIAN EMPIRE: |
Czar Alexander II assassinated (on
8th try) by terrorist faction of utopian Narodnaya Volya (The People's
Will).
Rumor that Jews were behind the killing sparks government-authorized
revenge against the Jews. |
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Russian
Czar Alexander II
"The Liberator Czar"
freed the serfs (in 1861, two years before Lincoln freed the
slaves). In other reforms he liberalized the press laws, opened
formerly secret trials to public scrutiny,
allowed Jews into Russia's cities, and opened to them the opportunity
to study in Russian universities. His advisors conclude Jewish
capitalists are behind the reforms.
He is murdered
by terrorists - disaffected upper class youths - who fear his
reforms might suffice the masses and divert them from true revolution.
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Russian
Czar Alexander III
Having watched his father bleed
to death after the terrorist bomb blew off his legs, Alexander
III becomes a fierce reactionary. He reverses every one of his
father's reforms within days and gives unlimited new powers
to police and to his internal spy agency. During his rule
terrorism and repression thrive on each other.
Russian policy
makers believe Jews are behind both his father's reforms and
his assassination. His "Temporary Laws" against Jews
stay in effect for 30 years.
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Another New Word: "Pogrom"
from Russian погром
"a wreaking of havoc"
Massive violence targeting
Jews, often with collusion of authorities. The word as come to be used
for mob violence that singles out any specific ethnic group.
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Rampaging
mob during 1881 pogrom depicted in newspaper illustration
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Jewish street
destroyed in pogrom in 1881
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| Pogrom violence against Jews in 166
towns
Thousands of Jewish homes destroyed,
many families reduced to extremes of poverty; women sexually assaulted,
and large numbers of men, women, and children killed or injured in 166
Russian towns. The most serious pogrom is in Kiev. Jews are expelled from
Moscow.
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| 1882 |
| RUSSIAN EMPIRE: |
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Czar
Alexander III introduces anti-Semitic "May Laws"
Designed to cause "one-third of the Jews to emigrate,
one-third to accept baptism, and one-third to starve". Jews are banned
from all rural areas and towns of less than ten thousand people. Strict
quotas are placed on the number of Jews allowed into secondary and higher
education and into many professions. Called "Temporary Laws",
they remain in effect until 1914 and trigger a mass migration of Jews,
mostly to the United States, some to Palestine.
Policy: Force one third of Jews to flee, one third to convert, kill
one third.
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Konstantin
Petrovich Pobedonostsev
Advisor to Czar Alexander
III, despised democracy and liberalization of society. He recommended
forcing one-third of the Jews to emigrate, one-third to accept baptism,
and one-third to starve. (This policy was revived by the Nazi puppet
government of "independent"
Croatia as a final solution to their Serb problem.)
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| GERMAN EMPIRE: |
Einstein
age 14, with sister Maja
Through two marriages and many
affairs, she remained the closest person in his life.
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| Young Einstein embraces, then rejects
organized religion |
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At age nine Albert moves
from elementary Volksshule to the local Luitpold Gymnasium,
a Catholic school. Bavarian law requires religious instruction, so Albert
is tutored at home in Judaism by a distant relative. Around age 11 he
goes through an intense religious phase, composing hymns to God which
he belts out to himself on the way to school. To his parents' amusement
he urges them to forgo pork, in keeping with Jewish dietary rules (they
decline). This phase abruptly ends a year later when he discovers science.
(Pais, Abraham, Subtle is the Lord:
The Science and the Life of Albert Einstein, Oxford University
Press 1982. pg. 37)
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One
Jewish practice that the Einstein family does practice
is that of hosting a poor Jewish student for one meal each week. For five
years, starting when Albert is ten the Einsteins are joined each Thursday
for dinner by medical student Max Talmud ("Talmey" after emigrating
to America). Talmud introduces young Albert to science and philosophy. |
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Max
Talmud (later "Talmey")
A Jewish custom of community support to
impoverished students brings the medical student to the Einstein home for
dinner every Thursday. He introduces young Albert to science and philosophy.
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| 1889 |
14 years
old
With Talmey's encouragement he had read Kant's Critique of
Pure reason the year before, at 13.
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Munich
class picture
Here he learns to detest regimentation,
rote learning and mindless drill. Military marching actually
frightens him. Einstein's teachers regard him a smart ass
who engenders disrespect for authority.
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RECALLING
ANTI-SEMITISM OF
HIS EARLY SCHOOL YEARS
The
teaching staff of the elementary school was liberal and made no
denominational distinctions. Among the Gymnasium teachers there
were quite a few anti-Semites, one in particular who never let
us forget that he was a reserve officer. Anti-Semitism was evident
among the children, particularly in the elementary school. Physical
assaults and and insults were frequent on the way to school, though
for the most part not really malicious. Even so, even in a child
of my age, a vivid feeling of not belonging.
1920 draft of letter written
by Einstein , age forty, recalling elementary school years. Cited
in Banesh Hoffman, article p. 235
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| 1893 |
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Founding of assimilationist "German Citizens of
the Jewish Faith". Einstein will rebuff them in favor of a Zionist
outlook. link
Dominant view of three competing approaches to Jewish
identity: Jewish religion is a "confessional
faith" alongside Protestantism and Catholicism.
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German Citizens of the Jewish Faith
Three approaches will dominate
German Jewish life in Einstein's time. The prevalent assimilationist
current is embodied in the organization founded in 1893.
"We are not German Jews," they declare. "We
are German citizens of the Jewish faith."
Einstein will rebuff their effort to recruit him. link He also distanced himself from the second, leftist revolutionary
movement - though he sympathized with leftist causes. He identified
himself with the third stream: Zionism.
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| 1894 |
| GERMAN EMPIRE / ITALY / SWITZERLAND |
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Einstein family moves
to Milan, Italy - without Albert
Abandoning his languishing business Hermann hopes to find better prospects
for electrotechnical business in Italy. They leave 15-year-old Albert
in care of distant relatives.
Einstein joins his family
in Italy, then completes high school in Switzerland. He relinquish his
German citizenship.
Depressed, Albert secures a physician's excuse and drops out of
school within a few months of his family's move. He rejoins his startled
parents in Italy. Still without having completed secondary school,
he applies to the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, but fails the
entrance exam (though with high marks in math and physics).
He spends the next year in at the district
secondary school in Aarau, near Zurich.
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Federal
Institute of Technology
Einstein's was told to finish high school, then apply again. |
| RUSSIAN EMPIRE: |
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Czar Nicholas
II
Succeeds his father Alexander III in 1894. He
will be last Russian Czar.
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FRANCE:
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| The Trial of Alfred Dreyfus |
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Captain
Alfred Dreyfus
Einstein was 16 years old in 1895 when
the innocent French captain Alfred Dreyfus was maliciously framed
on a charge of treason. The nationwide outburst of anti-Semitism
in liberal, democratic France, the very cradle of Jewish emancipation,
gave great impetus to Zionism.
This photo of Dreyfus on trial appears
in Martin Gilbert,
The Jews in the Twentieth Century, picture research by Sarah Jackson and Franziska
Payer Crockett, Schoken Books, New York 2001
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Anti-Semitic outpouring unleashed by Dreyfus trial
Reporting on the trial for a Viennese newspaper,
journalist Theodor Herzl notes the anti-Semitism rampant in the very cradle
of Jewish emancipation. He concludes that full acceptance of Jews in Europe
is impossible.
Death to the Jews! Death to the traitors!
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1896
SWITZERLAND:
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High
school at Aarau,
Switzerland.
Einstein seated on left
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Einstein
completes high school in Switzerland.
During his year in Aarau he lives with the Wintler family. 16-year-old
Albert develops a crush on one of the daughters, Marie Winteler. In 1898
his good friend Michele Besso will marry Marie's sister Anna, and in 1911
his sister marries a brother, Paul Wintler.
Also rooming with the Wintlers that year:is Einsteins first cousin, Robert Koch. His wife and daughters will be murdered by the Nazis in 1944.
Enters Swiss Federal Institute
of Technology
One week after graduating Aarau he is accepted into and starts four years
at ETH, one of 23 students studying math and natural sciences.
Here he will make lifelong friends with fellow students Marcel Grossman
and Michele Basso. Heinrich Zangger, a physician and major presence
at the academy also befriends him. Over the years all three will receive
letters from Einstein on his increasing commitment to Zionism (as well
as on many other topics).
Einstein meets
classmate Mileva Maric
Like Einstein, she is studying for a diploma that will qualify
her to teach high school math and physics. She is three and a half years
older, of Serbian parents and Greek Orthodox faith. After she leaves for
study in Heidelberg he begins writing her passionate letters. They will
not be discovered until 1973 when his son Hans Albert dies.
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The future
first Mrs. Einstein
Mileva (in 1899 photo)
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AUSTRO-HUNGARIAN EMPIRE:
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"Far-sighted"
Theodor Herzl
Einstein was 17 years old when the man
he would later call an "unforgettable"
visionary put forth his plan for Jewish political revival, though
Einstein wasn't drawn to Zionism until 15 years years later.
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| Theodore Herzl publishes Der Judenstaat
(The Jewish State): |
The
idea which I have developed in this book is a very old one: it
is the restoration of the Jewish State...
We shall live at last as free men on our own soil, and die peacefully
in our own homes....
whatever we attempt there to accomplish for our own welfare, will
react powerfully and beneficially for the good of humanity.
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"[F]ar-sighted men, among whom the unforgettable
Herzl stood out above the rest"-
Einstein on the First Zionist Congress
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First
Zionist Congress
There is no record of 18 year old
Einstein taking interest in the first Zionist Congress in the summer
of 1897. 32 years later he addressed the 16th Zionist Congress,
also in Switzerland. Above, Herzl speaks from the podium.
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Sunday, August 29
Herzl at First Zionist Congress, Basel Switzerland
About 200 delegates from
17 countries met in the concert hall of the Basel Municipal Casino to
launch the Zionist program. Some twenty years later Einstein recalled
the Zionist Movement's founders as "far-sighted men, among whom the
unforgettable Herzl stood out above the rest".
The
aim of Zionism is to create for the Jewish People a home in Palestine
secured by law.
Resolution
of first Zionist Congress
A Jerusalem university is proposed by Zionist delegate
Professor Hermann Schapira of Heidelberg.
Realization of this project
will become Einstein's primary Zionist focus.
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THE
OBJECT OF THEIR DESIRE:
PALESTINE: A BACKWATER PROVINCE IN THE CRUMBLING TURKISH EMPIRE
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The
Ottoman Empire - Palestine district
Lixxxxxxx.
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The Ottoman Empire in Decline
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Abdul-Hamid
II fumes
The Austrian Emperor and the Bulgarian
king tear at his empire in this contemporary cartoon from a French
magazine.
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"Men
with a past but without a future" -
Einstein's assessment of the pre-Zionist
Jews of Palestine
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Surviving mostly on halukah - charitable donations from
Jewish communities abroad, there were two distinct Jewish subcommunities
in Palestine: Sephardic Jews (from Asia and north Africa) and
Ashkenazim (from Hungary, Russia, Rumania and Western Europe).
They had few dealings with one another. In the Ottoman Empire
they had legal status of dhimmi - "protected"
minorities who submitted to Islamic authority and
certain formalized humiliations.
Right:
Traditional burial spot of Abraham and Sarah in Hebron. Dhimmi
Jews were permitted to ascend only as far as the seventh step.
Jews paid a tax to pray
at the Western Wall and to the Muslim villagers of Silwan to "protect"
Jewish graves on the Mt. of Olives.
( Thomas Idinopulis, Jerusalem Blessed, Jerusalem Cursed: Jews,
Christians and Muslims in the Holy City from David's Time to Our
Own Chicago, 1991)
At that time there was only a narrow lane in front of the Wall,
filthy with donkey droppings and garbage. Jews were permitted
no tables or chairs, no coverings from the sun or the traditional
divider between men's and women's prayer sections. This status
led to one of the most significant events in Zionist development,
and Einstein's
involvement.
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Herodian structure honored
as traditional burial spot of Abraham.
Islamic authorities permitted Jews to ascend only to the seventh
step.
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Western "Wailing"
Wall
Only a narrow lane in the 1800s, Jews were permitted no improvements.
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1890s
Jews in Jerusalem ,
Most Jews lived in the cities holy in Jewish
tradition: Jerusalem (where they were the majority), Hebron, Safed,
Tiberius and
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By
the end of the century a few brave souls ventured out of the established
communities to found agricultural settlements:
Jerusalemites established Petah Tikvah (Portal of Hope - in photo)
A contingent from Safed founded Rosh Pina (Cornerstone).
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| 1st Aliya 1882-1903 |
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The first of many immigration waves of young,
secular Jewish immigrants make their way to Palestine. The oppressive
conditions in Russia lead to mass Jewish migration to America, numbers
of young Jews being attracted to revolutionary activity, and the taking
root of the Zionist movement.
The Zionist immigrants from Russia settled
mainly along the coastal plain, founding the community of Rishon le 'Zion
(First to Zion) on an uninhabited strip of sandy land southeast of Jaffa.
The coastal plain, were was sparsely settled, as most of the population was
concentrated in villages in the interior highlands - the modern "West
Bank" - the Judea and Samaria of biblical times. Ottoman land reforms
had recently encouraged Palestinian Arab notables to acquire large tracts
of uncultivated land and to introduce cash crops for export.
The struggling pioneers found a supporter
in philanthropist Baron de Rothschild who established a vineyard in their
settlement. (Their vintage won the gold medal at Paris Exhibition of 1900
(Ahron Bregman A History of Israel Palgrave Essential Histories 2003)
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First
Aliya to Palestine
The first aliya (wave of Zionist immigrants)
bought land along the sparsely inhabited coastal plain. Most of the Arab
population then lived in the inland hill country, then called by the biblical
names Samaria and
Judea - the "West Bank"
of modern usage.
photo: Family in Yesud haMa'aleh in the upper Galilee
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1898
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OTTOMAN EMPIRE:
German Kaiser Whilhelm visits Istanbul with side
trip to Palestine
The trip strengthens the fast-developing ties between
the Ottoman Empire and Germany. Germans become
chief providers of weapons and training to the
Ottoman army.
1898 Herzl welcomes the German Kaiser Wilhelm to a Zionist agricultural
settlement during the German king's visit.
Herzl was convinced Zionism could succeed only if it were allied
with a major Western power.
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1898
Kaiser Wilhelm at Dome of Rock |
| 1899 |
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EUROPE:
Vast migration of Jews from oppressive Russian
Empire
They flee to Central Europe, America, and Palestine
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1899 Unflattering postcard depicts Jews
driven out of Russia making their way to Germany
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