- Person
- Albert Einstein
- Lived
- 1879–1955
- Field
- Physics
- From
- German-American
The story
On 24 July 1918, while the First World War was still being fought, the cornerstone for the Hebrew University was laid. Albert Einstein and the chemist Chaim Weizmann are regarded as its co-founders. By then Einstein was world famous: the eclipse observations of 1919 had confirmed his general theory of relativity and made him perhaps the best-known scientist alive.
In 1921 Weizmann, president of the World Zionist Organization, asked Einstein to help raise money for the planned university. Einstein agreed, and in April 1921 he arrived in New York for his first visit to the United States. He was welcomed by the mayor, gave lectures at Columbia and Princeton, visited the White House with representatives of the National Academy of Sciences and spent weeks at receptions, lending his name and presence to the cause.
Einstein did more than lend his fame. He made suggestions for the university's scientific direction, proposing an Institute of Agriculture, a Chemical Institute and an Institute of Microbiology to help fight the epidemics then affecting the region, such as malaria. He also promoted an Institute of Oriental Studies offering courses in both Hebrew and Arabic.
On 1 April 1925 the Hebrew University's campus on Mount Scopus opened at a gala ceremony attended by Jewish leaders, scholars and British dignitaries including Lord Balfour and Winston Churchill. Its first board of governors included Sigmund Freud and Martin Buber, and Judah Magnes became its first chancellor.
His connection to the university lasted for the rest of his life and beyond. In his will he left it his personal papers and the copyright to them. The Albert Einstein Archives at the Hebrew University hold some 55,000 items, including manuscripts, notes and about 3,500 pages of private correspondence; in 2012 the university announced it had digitised the entire archive. The university's Einstein Institute of Mathematics also bears his name.
The Hebrew University has since become one of Israel's leading research institutions, affiliated with 15 Nobel Prize winners, two Fields Medallists and four of Israel's prime ministers among its alumni.
Why it matters
The university Einstein helped launch grew into one of the world's leading research institutions, and his archives there keep his scientific and personal legacy open to scholars everywhere.
About Albert Einstein
Theoretical physicist; relativity, the photoelectric effect, E=mc². Reshaped 20th-century physics and won the 1921 Nobel Prize.
More about Albert Einstein
- Einstein published four world-changing papers in 1905In 1905, while working as a patent clerk in Bern, Albert Einstein published four papers that transformed physics. Historians call it his miracle year.
- A 1919 eclipse confirmed Einstein's general relativityEinstein's 1915 theory of general relativity predicted that the sun bends starlight. Eclipse measurements in May 1919 matched his calculations and made him world famous.
- Einstein's photoelectric law, basis of modern light techIn 1905 Albert Einstein explained the photoelectric effect by proposing that light comes in packets of energy, work that won him the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics.
- Einstein predicted a new state of matter in 1924Building on work by Indian physicist Satyendra Nath Bose, Albert Einstein predicted in 1924 that atoms cooled near absolute zero would merge into one quantum state. It was created in 1995.
- Einstein predicted gravitational waves in 1916In 1916 Albert Einstein predicted ripples in spacetime called gravitational waves. LIGO detected them directly on 14 September 2015, nearly one hundred years later.
- Einstein's 1917 idea of stimulated emission led to the laserIn 1917 Albert Einstein introduced the concept of stimulated emission of light. Decades later it became the working principle of the maser and the laser.
- Einstein welcomed Marian Anderson into his home in 1937When a Princeton hotel refused a room to the Black contralto Marian Anderson in 1937, Albert Einstein invited her to stay at his house. She stayed with him on later visits.
- Einstein campaigned for Black civil rights in AmericaAlbert Einstein joined the NAACP, called racism America's worst disease, and in 1946 spoke at Lincoln University, a historically Black college that gave him an honorary degree.
- Einstein inspired the founding of the Rescue CommitteeIn 1933 the American branch of the International Relief Association was founded at Albert Einstein's suggestion to help people suffering under Hitler. It grew into the IRC.
- Einstein helped place German Jewish scientists in TurkeyIn September 1933 Albert Einstein wrote to Turkey’s prime minister asking him to employ German Jewish scientists dismissed by the Nazis. Hundreds of refugee scholars found posts in Turkey.
Sources
- Albert Einstein Wikipedia
- Hebrew University of Jerusalem Wikipedia
Another act of tikkun olam. This is part of tikkun olam, the Jewish idea of repairing the world, and every one of us can add to it.