Albert Einstein (1879-1955) was a world-renown, German-born theoretical physicist. Einstein co-founded the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1925. He supported Jewish migration to Palestine, but he stood strongly against the creation of a Jewish nation-state.
In 1948, the American Friends of the Fighters for the Freedom of Israel (which represented the Stern Gang and LEHI) sought Einstein’s help in raising funds for the Jewish fighters. Einstein refused with this letter that said “When a real and final catastrophe should befall us in Palestine the first responsible for it would be the British and the second responsible for it would be the Terrorist Organizations build [sic] up from our own ranks. I am not willing to see anybody associated with those mislead and criminal people.”
The history of the letter is described on the Deir Yassin Remembered website: https://www.deiryassin.org/einstein.html. You can learn more about Deir Yassin at https://promisedlandmuseum.org/creation-of-state/.
Other sites that have presented this letter include the following:
https://united4justice.wordpress.com/tag/einstein-letter-to-shepard-rifkin-on-isareli-terrorists/
https://ifamericansknew.org/history/ter-einstein.html
https://www.palestineremembered.com/Jerusalem/Dayr-Yasin/Story8497.html
In 1952, Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion offered Einstein the position of President of Israel, and Einstein again refused.
