“I am generally regarded as sort of a petrified object,” he noted to Max Born, then a professor in Edinburgh, one of those friends whose affection had lasted so long. “I find this role not too distasteful, as it corresponds very well with my temperament ...I simply enjoy giving more than receiving in every respect, do not take myself nor the doings of the masses seriously, am not ashamed of my weaknesses and vices, and naturally take things as they come with equanimity and humor.”39
Before the Second World War, Einstein had stated his opposition to a Jewish state when speaking to three thousand celebrants at a Manhattan hotel seder. “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,” he said. “I am afraid of the inner damage Judaism will sustain—especially from the development of a narrow nationalism within our ranks. We are no longer the Jews of the Maccabee period.”40
After the war, he took the same stance. When he testified in Washington in 1946 to an international committee looking into the situation in Palestine, he denounced the British for pitting Jews against Arabs, called for more Jewish immigration, but rejected the idea that the Jews should be nationalistic. “The State idea is not in my heart,” he said in a quiet whisper that reverberated through the shocked audience of ardent Zionists. “I cannot understand why it is needed.”41 Rabbi Stephen Wise was flabbergasted that Einstein would break ranks with true Zionists at such a public hearing, and he got him to sign a clarifying statement that was, in fact, not clarifying at all.
Einstein was especially dismayed by the militaristic methods used by Menachem Begin and other Jewish militia leaders, and he joined with his occasional antagonist Sidney Hook to sign a petition in the
But when the State of Israel was declared in 1948, Einstein wrote the same friend to say that his attitude had changed. “I have never considered the idea of a state a good one, for economic, political and military reasons,” he conceded. “But now, there is no going back, and one has to fight it out.”43
The creation of Israel caused him, yet again, to back away from the pure pacifism he had once embraced. “We may regret that we have to use methods that are repulsive and stupid to us,” he wrote to a Jewish group in Uruguay, “but to bring about better conditions in the international sphere, we must first of all maintain our experience by all means at our disposal.”44
Chaim Weizmann, the indefatigable Zionist who brought Einstein to America in 1921, had become Israel’s first president, a prestigious but generally ceremonial post in a system that vested most power in the prime minister and cabinet. When he died in November 1952, a Jerusalem newspaper began urging that Einstein be tapped to replace him. Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion bowed to the pressure, and word quickly spread that Einstein would be asked.
It was an idea that was at once both astonishing and obvious—and also impractical. Einstein first learned of it from a small article in the
“Why should that man come all that way,” Einstein lamented, “when I only will have to say no?”
Helen Dukas came up with the idea of simply giving Ambassador Eban a phone call. In those days, impromptu long-distance calls were somewhat novel. To her surprise, she was able to track Eban down in Washington and put him on the line with Einstein.
“I am not the person for that and I cannot possibly do it,” Einstein said.
“I cannot tell my government that you phoned me and said no,” Eban replied. “I have to go through the motions and present the offer officially.”
Eban ended up sending a deputy, who handed Einstein a formal letter asking if he would take on the presidency. “Acceptance would entail moving to Israel and taking its citizenship,” Eban’s letter noted (presumably in case Einstein harbored any fantasy that he could preside over Israel from Princeton). Eban hastened to reassure Einstein, however: “Freedom to pursue your great scientific work would be afforded by a government and people who are fully conscious of the supreme significance of your labors.” In other words, it was a job that would require his presence, but not much else.
Even though the offer seemed somewhat strange, it was a powerful testament to Einstein’s unsurpassed standing as a hero of world Jewry. It “embodies the deepest respect which the Jewish people can repose in any of its sons,” Eban said.
Einstein had already prepared his note of rejection, which he handed to Eban’s envoy as soon as he arrived. “I have been a lawyer all my life,” the visitor joked, “and I have never gotten a rebuttal before I have stated my case.”
He was “deeply moved” by the offer, Einstein said in his prepared response, and “at once saddened and ashamed” that he would not accept it. “All my life I have dealt with objective matters, hence I lack both the natural aptitude and the experience to deal properly with people and to exercise official function,” he explained. “I am the more distressed over these circumstances because my relationship with the Jewish people became my strongest human tie once I achieved complete clarity about our precarious position among the nations of the world.”45
Offering Einstein the presidency of Israel was a clever idea, but Einstein was right to realize that sometimes a brilliant idea is also a very bad one. As he noted with his usual wry self-awareness, he did not have the natural aptitude to deal with people in the way the role would require, nor did he have the temperament to be an official functionary. He was not cut out to be either a statesman or a figurehead.
He liked to speak his mind, and he had no patience for the compromises necessary to manage, or even symbolically lead, complex organizations. Back when he was involved as a figurehead leader in the establishing of Hebrew University, he had not possessed the talent to handle, nor the temperament to ignore, all of the maneuverings involved. Likewise, he had more recently had the same unpleasant experiences with a group creating Brandeis University near Boston, which caused him to resign from that endeavor.46
In addition, he had never displayed a discernible ability to run anything. The only formal administrative duty he had ever undertaken was to head a new physics institute at the University of Berlin. He did little other than hire his stepdaughter to handle some clerical tasks and give a job to the astronomer trying to confirm his theories.
Einstein’s brilliance sprang from being a rebel and nonconformist who recoiled at any attempt to restrain his free expression. Are there any worse traits for someone who is supposed to be a political conciliator? As he
