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Albert Einstein died with a speech for Israel in his hands. This day (April 17) in 1955, the world’s most celebrated genius was hospitalized with internal bleeding. It was just 9 days before Israel’s 7th Independence Day & Einstein was scheduled to give a major televised address (to air on ABC, NBC & CBS) - he had a draft of his speech with him in the hospital. Sadly for the world, Albert Einstein passed away the very next day. He was never able to share any more of his genius or the speech he intended to give marking Israel’s rebirth days later. However, you can read here what Einstein intended to say: “The establishment of Israel is an event which actively engages the conscience of this generation ... It is a bitter paradox to find that a State which was destined to be a shelter for a martyred people is itself threatened by grave dangers to its own security. The universal conscience cannot be indifferent to such peril.” Einstein had been a passionate Zionist for decades. In 1921, he toured America with Chaim Weizmann raising funds for Hebrew University in Jerusalem. The following year, he lectured there and proudly declared Jews were once again becoming “a force in the world.” In a letter to Jawaharlal Nehru in 1947, Einstein wrote: “Long before the emergence of Hitler I made the cause of Zionism mine because through it I saw a means of correcting a flagrant wrong ... The Jewish people alone has for centuries been in the anomalous position of being victimized and hounded as a people.” When Israel offered him the presidency (a largely ceremonial position) in 1952, he declined with characteristic humility: “I am deeply moved by the offer from our State of Israel ... but I lack both the natural aptitude and the experience to deal properly with people and to exercise official functions.” Here, in the picture below, he is smiling and laughing with Israel’s first Prime Minister - David Ben-Gurion. Einstein supported the project for Jewish sovereignty from its earliest days. He even spoke at the 1939 Palestine Pavilion (a purely Jewish pavilion at the time) at the New York World’s Fair, calling the Zionist project “a refuge in a stormy sea of turmoil.” Yet even in America, Einstein faced antisemitism. Princeton University wouldn’t hire Jewish professors until the late 1940s. That’s right - Princeton would not hire EINSTEIN to teach at its university because he was a Jew. So while people often say “Einstein taught at Princeton,” that’s inaccurate. In truth, he worked at the Institute for Advanced Study, a prestigious but entirely separate entity located in the town of Princeton that had to be created by American Jews as a haven for refugee scholars escaping Nazi-occupied Europe. While Einstein largely rejected organized religion, he described himself as having a “deep religiosity” rooted in wonder at the universe. For Einstein, Judaism was a cultural and ethical tradition; and he maintained his strong solidarity with the Jewish people. Regarding being a Jew, Einstein once famously remarked: “A Jew who abandons his Judaism is like a snail that abandons its shell. It’s still a snail.” Einstein’s mind helped change our understanding of the world. Einstein’s heart never abandoned his people.

Scarsdale, NY: Jewish students at Scarsdale High School were disturbed to discover a flyer advertising an Israel festival soaked in urine and left in a urinal. Jews make up approx. 25% of the district’s population and the area is widely regarded as one of the safest in New York.