Like So Many Humanists

Like so many humanists, Einstein's relationships to those people closest to him were often less than humane. I just finished reading the insightful EINSTEIN IN LOVE by Dennis Overbye. He writes: From a distance, the trajectory of Einstein’s life looks mythic. The one-time humble patent clerk, with his corona of white hair and the haunted eyes, who overturned the universe and gave us the formula for God’s fire, who was chased by war and promethean guilt to wander sockless like a holy fool through the streets of Princeton, making oracular pronouncements about God and nature, has become an icon not just of science but of humanity in the face of the unknown. His visage, peering beneficently out at us from coffee mugs, posters, calendars, and T-shirts, is familiar in every corner of the world. Behind the iconic face, however, was a human being, one capable – as all human beings are- of behaving in distinctly un-iconic ways.

Some things aren’t relative: Einstein was an atheist

Some things aren’t relative: Einstein was an atheist

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Einstein on the Berlin Wall

I was so happy to discover this in Berlin last summer -- just when I began thinking about the Einstein exhibit I've begun to work on.

Einstein as a Victim of Bias

The Fascist National Socialist German Workers (Nazi) Party, led by Adolf Hitler, took power in Germany on January 30, 1933. That year, Nazis searched Einstein's old home, confiscated his belongings, and burned books that he had written. His photograph was posted in the official "Enemies of the State" book, with the caption reading, "Not yet hanged."

from Albert Einstein: The Miracle Mind by Tabatha Yeatts

To Be a Jew

To be a Jew...means, first of all, to acknowledge and follow in practice those fundamentals in humaneness laid down in the Bible -- fundamentals without which no sound and happy community can exist.

from a speech given in NYC in 1938, as cited by Devra Newberger Speregen in

Albert Einstein: The Jewish Man Behind the Theory

The pursuit of knowledge for its own sake, an almost fanatical love of justice, and the desire for personal independence - these are the features of the Jewish tradition which make me thank my lucky stars that I belong to.

1934, as cited by Devra Newberger Speregen in

Albert Einstein: The Jewish Man Behind the Theory

Whatever there is of God and goodness in the universe, it must work itself out and express itself through us. We can not stand aside and let God do it.

1949. Einstein Archives. as cited by Devra Newberger Speregen in

Albert Einstein: The Jewish Man Behind the Theory

Albert Einstein Bibliography: Children and Young Adults (in progress)

Calaprice, Alice, ed. Dear Professor Einstein: Albert Einstein's Letters to and from Children. Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 2002.


Deland, Maree Ferguson. Genius: A Photobiography of Albert Einstein. Washington, D.C.: National Geographic, 2005



Lassieur, Allison. Albert Einstein: Genius of the Twentieth Century. NY: Franklin Watts, 2005.


Meltzer, Milton. Albert Einstein: A Biography. NY: Holiday House, 2008



Speregen, Devra Newberger. Albert Einstein: The Jewish Man Behind the Theory. Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society, 2006.



Wyborny, Shelia. Albert Einstein. Farmington Hills: KidHaven Press, 2003.


Yeatts, Tabatha. Albert Einstein: The Miracle Mind. New York: Sterling Press, 2007

Albert Einstein Online Sites (in progress)

http://www.albert-einstein.org

http://www.alberteinstein.info

http://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/einstein/energy/special.php