In the trailer below for the documentary Einstein: Still a Revolutionary, the children seen and heard chanting “Einstein! Einstein! Rah! Rah!” are San Diegans. Possibly some of them may be centenarians still alive today. The full documentary briefly shows Einstein being greeted in San Diego by Mayor Harry C. Clark on December 31, 1930 as he disembarked here from the Belgenland.
That portion of the film by Julia Newman was intended to show Einstein’s celebrity status around the world after he authored the famous “Theory of Relativity” and won the Nobel Prize. Considered by many to be the smartest man alive, Einstein was asked his views on almost every topic ranging from daily living to international politics and, of course, to theoretical physics.
In fact, Einstein had many opinions, some of which may surprise you. As early as World War I, he opposed militarism, leaving Germany to live elsewhere in Italy and Switzerland. “I’m a militant pacifist; I’m willing to fight for peace,” we hear him say as voiced by actor Daniel Alexander. From the time he was a child he experienced anti-Semitism, as exemplified on the day a teacher displayed a nail in class, and said “This is the nail Jews used to crucify the Lord.” Yet, Einstein did not embrace Zionism; he opposed it as another form of nationalism, which he believed stirred unhealthy emotions in people. After his return to Germany following World War I, he needed to look no farther than the rising Nazi tide to see nationalism at its worth.
While Einstein was not a regular worshiper at a synagogue, many rabbis would have gladly paraphrased him in their sermons. “Only morality in our actions give beauty and dignity to our lives” is one of his quotations that comes to mind. The chemist Fritz Haber, who like Einstein was Jewish, was a particular disappointment, although they remained friends. Having discovered a way to synthesize elements into ammonia, Haber’s discoveries were used by the Kaiser’s government to manufacture poison gas during World War I.
During the time of Germany’s liberal Weimar Republic, right-wing groups offered rewards for Einstein’s assassination. He often removed himself from the tension by visiting other countries both in Asia and the Western Hemisphere. His 1930 visit to San Diego came at the end of a cruise that began in New York and transited the Panama Canal. From San Diego, he continued to the Los Angeles area, where he had a fellowship invitation at the California Institute of Technology.
Einstein spoke out on a variety of social issues. About abortion, he said up to a certain stage it should be acceptable; about homosexuality, he said it should b exempt from punishment. After Adolf Hitler became Germany’s chancellor, Einstein renounced his German citizenship, eventually becoming an honored researcher at Princeton University. There he spoke out against racism. When the great singer Marian Anderson was denied a room at a nearby hotel because she was African American, he invited her to stay at his home with his family. Similarly, he hosted the singer/ actor Paul Robeson. Racism, he declared, was a white person’s disease.
The scientist used his celebrity to try to win visas for Jewish immigrants, whose lives were threatened by the Nazis. He also wrote a famous letter to Franklin D. Roosevelt warning him that the Nazi Germans were trying to develop a super-bomb, and urging the United States not to fall behind. The Manhattan Project which developed the first atomic bomb resulted.
Following the war, David Ben-Gurion, Israe;’s founding prime minister, called on Einstein at Princeton, trying to persuade him to become Israel’s president. Einstein refused saying that if he became president, he would have to say things the Israeli people would not want to hear. He advocated the development of joint institutions with Israel’s Arab citizens. When Menachem Begin wanted to visit the United States, Einstein was among those who without success sought to have his entry denied. He considered Begin and out and out terrorist. Einstein was an opponent of McCarthyism, undaunted by the Wisconsin Republican senator’s attempt to brand him as a communist.
This fascinating documentary is scheduled to be released on DVD on May 26. Here is a link to details.
Republished from San Diego Jewish World