In a 1949 broadcast over radio, Albert Einstein addressed the conference of the United Jewish Appeal in Atlantic City, New Jersey, on the question of Jewish-Arab solidarity in the middle-east.
In celebration of Albert Einstein, born March 14, 1879, world renowned Jewish physicist, we present his timely words. As a friend to human progress, Albert felt he had a responsibility, after escaping Nazi Germany, to lead people, Jewish and non-Jewish to peace and justice. His activism included his support of the newly founded state of Israel in 1948. In his message to the conference, he addresses the Jewish people of Israel and the world, he mentions that Israeli Independence was a response to British rule preventing Jewish immigration and that it was the British that stirred the hatred among the Jewish and Arab peoples.
Today, the Israel-Hamas ceasefire continues, but the Israeli army continues to be supplied by American weapons. Anti-immigration policies under Donald Trump, who has recently stated that America should take over the Palestinian land in Gaza, is seeking to deport a Palestinian green card carrying resident for expressing his 1st Amendment Right to peacefully protest. The United Jewish Peoples Fraternal Order gives a “Yashir Koach,” to the genius and defender of justice, Albert Einstein and his much-needed message of peace and solidarity with the oppressed and foreign-born.
– UJPFO Chair Jake Ginsberg
The Jews of Israel, 27 November 1949 – Albert Einstein
THERE IS NO PROBLEM of such overwhelming importance to us Jews as consolidating that which has been accomplished in Israel with amazing energy and an unequaled willingness for sacrifice. May the joy and admiration that fill us when we think of all that this small group of energetic and thoughtful people has achieved give us the strength to accept the great responsibility which the present situation has placed upon us.
When appraising the achievement, however, let us not lose sight of the cause to be served by this achievement: rescue of our endangered brethren, dispersed in many lands, by uniting them in Israel; creation of a community which conforms as closely as possible to the ethical ideals of our people as they have been formed in the course of a long history.
One of these ideals is peace, based on understanding and self-restraint, and not on violence. If we are imbued with this ideal, our joy becomes somewhat mingled with sadness, because our relations with the Arabs are far from this ideal at the present time. It may well be that we would have reached this ideal, had we been permitted to work out, undisturbed by others, our relations with our neighbors, for we want peace and we realize that our future development depends on peace.
It was much less our own fault or that of our neighbors than of the Mandatory Power, that we did not achieve an undivided Palestine in which Jews and Arabs would live as equals, free, in peace. If one nation dominates other nations, as was the case in the British Mandate over Palestine, she can hardly avoid following the notorious device of Divide et Impera. In plain language this means: create discord among the governed people so they will not unite in order to shake off the yoke imposed upon them. Well, the yoke has been removed, but the seed of dissension has borne fruit and may still do harm for some time to come—let us hope not for too long.
The Jews of Palestine did not fight for political independence for its own sake, but they fought to achieve free immigration for the Jews of many countries where their very existence was in danger; free immigration also for all those who were longing for a life among their own. It is no exaggeration to say that they fought to make possible a sacrifice perhaps unique in history.
I do not speak of the loss in lives and property fighting an opponent who was numerically far superior, nor do I mean the exhausting toil which is the pioneer’s lot in a neglected arid country. I am thinking of the additional sacrifice that a population living under such conditions has to make in order to receive, in the course of eighteen months, an influx of immigrants which comprise more than one third of the total Jewish population of the country. In order to realize what this means you have only to visualize a comparable feat of the American Jews. Let us assume there were no laws limiting the immigration into the United States; imagine that the Jews of this country volunteered to receive more than one million Jews from other countries in the course of one year and a half, to take care of them, and to integrate them into the economy of this country. This would be a tremendous achievement, but still very far from the achievement of our brethren in Israel. For the United States is a big, fertile country, sparsely populated with a high living standard and a highly developed productive capacity, not to compare with small Jewish Palestine whose inhabitants, even without the additional burden of mass immigration, lead a hard and frugal life, still threatened by enemy attacks. Think of the privations and personal sacrifices which this voluntary act of brotherly love means for the Jews of Israel.
The economic means of the Jewish Community in Israel do not suffice to bring this tremendous enterprise to a successful end. For a hundred thousand out of more than three hundred thousand persons who immigrated to Israel since May 1948 no homes or work could be made available. They had to be concentrated in improvised camps under conditions which are a disgrace to all of us.
It must not happen that this magnificent work breaks down because the Jews of this country do not help sufficiently or quickly enough. Here, to my mind, is a precious gift with which all Jews have been presented: the opportunity to take an active part in this wonderful task.