5 ms·
Albert Einstein was offered the second presidency of Israel, unsolicited, to succeed Israel's first president Chaim Weizman. He declined.
by jeffwass 10y ago
Albert Einstein was offered the second presidency of Israel, unsolicited, to succeed Israel's first president Chaim Weizman.
He declined.
- wallace_f 10y agoIt would have been a nightmare for Einstein. He was a scientist, lover, and musician at heart. He even, while not officially rebuking Israel, was very critical of it. The right wing ideology and cultural/racial monopoly/supremacy, especially.
- rat87 10y agoThis doesn't give enough context while he was critical of certain things and of the then weak right wing parties that were the predecessors of today's Israeli right he was a big supporter of Israel especially as a fundraiser He was on the board of deputies of Hebrew University and donated his papers to it
- wallace_f 10y agoYes that is true. I didn't say he disapproved of Israel. I think we're in agreement: as you said, he disapproved of the right-wing predecessors of modern-day Israel. He was very, very critical of them, and even compared them to Nazi Germany (his words). >a political party closely akin in its organization, methods, political philosophy and social appeal to the Nazi and Fascist parties. source: https://archive.org/details/AlbertEinsteinLetterToTheNewYorkTimes.December41948 https://archive.org/details/AlbertEinsteinLetterToTheNewYork... Today it's not hard to find op-eds criticizing Einstein as being "wrong" on this.
- rat87 10y agoNote that the presidency of Israel is a mostly symbolic role(like a less important Queen of Britain), the political power rests with the Prime Minister