Einstein wasn’t a big zionist type studying the torah and waiting to return to the promised land,
Just some historical nitpicking, but “Zionist” is a political descriptor, not a religious one. Particularly in Einstein’s time, the word would have meant something more like “socialist commune member” than “observantly religious person”.
In fact, most usages of the term “Zionist” today are wrong, since the word is used more often by its enemies than by its supporters.
I agree with you on this—its a political term nowadays , and im in DC so i fairly commonly come across all the uses (and i even have distant cousins in Israel, my closer ones came through ellis island from russia around 1910, have some distant ones who died in the holocaust, etc.). but technically i’m goy through genetics and/or descent. (other half of my family were essentially expelled from britain because they were a dissident protestant sect—the brethren, related in a way to the mennonites. they werent involved in salem witch trials, nor indigenous genocide, though did get their 40 acre farm in north dakota—before fracking ). (I gather Herzl (sic) maybe wrote early ideas on zionism for various reasons (religion, political persecution—russia had pogroms (see ‘fiddler on a roof’ movie i think )). Einstein does have an essay ‘why i am a socialist’ (one can also consider bertrand russel’s ‘why i am not a christian’ (he was, like me, agnostic) . kibbutz idea.
Sorin Solomon of Weiszmann Inst and NewInstitute for Economic thinking is one prof there (writes on statistical mechanics of income distribution); i think he was in Peace Now. Einstein was on first board of Hebrew U.
Just some historical nitpicking, but “Zionist” is a political descriptor, not a religious one. Particularly in Einstein’s time, the word would have meant something more like “socialist commune member” than “observantly religious person”.
In fact, most usages of the term “Zionist” today are wrong, since the word is used more often by its enemies than by its supporters.
I agree with you on this—its a political term nowadays , and im in DC so i fairly commonly come across all the uses (and i even have distant cousins in Israel, my closer ones came through ellis island from russia around 1910, have some distant ones who died in the holocaust, etc.). but technically i’m goy through genetics and/or descent. (other half of my family were essentially expelled from britain because they were a dissident protestant sect—the brethren, related in a way to the mennonites. they werent involved in salem witch trials, nor indigenous genocide, though did get their 40 acre farm in north dakota—before fracking ). (I gather Herzl (sic) maybe wrote early ideas on zionism for various reasons (religion, political persecution—russia had pogroms (see ‘fiddler on a roof’ movie i think )). Einstein does have an essay ‘why i am a socialist’ (one can also consider bertrand russel’s ‘why i am not a christian’ (he was, like me, agnostic) . kibbutz idea. Sorin Solomon of Weiszmann Inst and NewInstitute for Economic thinking is one prof there (writes on statistical mechanics of income distribution); i think he was in Peace Now. Einstein was on first board of Hebrew U.