A rare handwritten and signed letter from Albert Einstein, one of the most influential physicists of all time, is up for auction at the Kedem Auction House in Jerusalem.
The letter, written in 1936 to a friend who was considering a position offered to him at the American Academy, provides a glimpse into the level of anti-Semitism in the United States at the time, and the difficulties a Jewish immigrant faced without ties.
"There is a tremendous amount of anti-Semitism here, especially in academia (though also in industry and banking)," Einstein wrote to his friend, the Austrian Jewish pianist Bruno Eisner.
"Note, that he never takes the form of violent speech or action, but brews very powerfully beneath the surface. It is, so to speak, an enemy that is everywhere, one that cannot be seen, and whose presence can only be felt."
The leadership of the Nazi party led by Adolf Hitler in 1933, Photo: GettyImages
The letter was compiled when Einstein lived in Princeton, New Jersey, a few years after the Nazis came to power and his decision to never return to Germany.
Eisner was already in New York, and was staying with another friend of Einstein's, the ophthalmologist Max Ptolemy.
In the letter, Einstein described his aide's experience as an example of someone who faced extreme anti-Semitism and was forced to leave the United States to get a job in Russia.
"Unfortunately you rely on the wrong assumption. I'm very lonely here, and I'm not in touch with anyone, let alone with musicians. The division of roles is completely unorganized, so you find out about vacancies somewhere only through personal connections."
Einstein summed up the letter with a greeting from his wife Elsa who was seriously ill (and terminally ill) at the time: "She is suffering greatly, bedridden, having difficulty breathing, diabetes ..." She passed away three months later.
Despite the surging wave of anti-Semitism that characterized those years - the spread of Nazism throughout Europe, anti-Jewish demagoguery, conspiracy theories related to the New Deal in the shadow of the Great Depression - Eisner was able to find his niche in the American classical music scene.
He has cultivated a career as a concert pianist and professor of music, taught at universities and music academies around the country, and died at the age of 94 in New York.
Albert Einstein's figure at the Madame Tussauds Museum in Istanbul, Photo: AP
With the rise of the Nazis to power in 1933, there was a move to gradually isolate Jews and remove them from positions of influence in German society. Among the earliest antisemitic decrees were laws that barred Jews from serving in public positions, which included university positions. This discrimination appealed mainly to Jewish physicists and Einstein's theory of relativity was rejected as "Jewish physics". Einstein was on a lecture tour outside Germany when Hitler came to power, and when he saw the situation in his homeland he decided to give up his German citizenship. After a short time he settled in the United States, where he was offered a job at the Institute of Advanced Studies at Princeton University. Einstein remained at Princeton until his death on April 18, 1955.
"This letter sheds light on a lesser-known aspect of Einstein's life in the United States," said Maron Aran, CEO of Kedem Auction House and co-founder.
"At that time, anti-Semitism in the United States was largely overshadowed by the Holocaust and the millions who died in Europe.
"This letter serves as another important reminder that liberal societies are not immune to this disease and that we must always be vigilant against any form of racism."
