August 2019 Auction Ends Thursday, August 29th, 5pm Pacific
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 8/29/2019
Albert Einstein typed letter signed, dated 8 June 1935 from the ''White House'' in Old Lyme, Connecticut, where he vacationed. Einstein writes to his colleague, fellow physicist Paul Epstein regarding the plight of Jewish intellectuals in the United States, and the necessity for Jewish teaching institutions. Einstein also discusses his Unified Field Theory and refers to his manuscript, ''The Particle Problem in the General Theory of Relativity''. Fascinating letter in German reads in full,
''I was extremely happy to gather from your letter that you take such an active interest in creating vital connections among the Jewish intellectuals in this country, as well as to read that the excellent writer [Dr. S. M.] Melamed has taken in hand the editorship of the journal 'Reflex'. I will be happy to join the editorial board, of course. The hostile attitude of universities towards Jewish teaching staff and students has been increasing perilously, even though it manifests in a genteel or hypocritical manner. Unless we are able in time to awaken the understanding that establishing Jewish teaching institutions is an absolute imperative, the Jews in this country will become intellectually proletarianized. Unfortunately, the current Jewish leaders do not comprehend the seriousness of the situation, similar to the German Jews in the time before Hitler. They believe that they are able to put an end to the problem by being silent and disregarding it, and they thus miss the time for creating places of support. This is not just true for the functions of the educational system, of course, but in economic and social terms as well.
Much to my surprise, I discovered that the centrosymmetric solutions for the gravitational field as well as the electromagnetic field are singularity-free, if we allow for hypersurfaces, on which the determinant of [handwritten:] g n r disappears. I sent a copy of the manuscript to [Richard C.] Tolman; perhaps you will be able to have him tell you about it in more detail. I do not think it impossible that this might prove to be the nucleus for a theory of the atomistic structure of matter and electricity.
Warm greetings to you, to your wife and your little daughter. / Yours, / [signed] A. Einstein''.
At the time Einstein wrote this letter, all but one medical school in the United States imposed quotas on Jewish matriculants, and it wouldn't be for another 13 years that Brandeis University was established. Single page letter measures 7.25'' x 10.5''. Shallow folds, light toning and light creasing, overall very good plus condition.
Albert Einstein Letter Signed in 1935 -- ''The hostile attitude of universities towards Jewish teaching staff and students has been increasing...similar to the German Jews in the time before Hitler''
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