About Zionism: Speeches and Letters.

EINSTEIN, Albert.

$25,000.00

Item Number: 146050

New York: The MacMillan Company, 1931.

First edition of this volume of Einstein’s speeches and letters concerning his views on Zionism. Octavo, original cloth. Boldly signed and dated in the year of publication on the front free endpaper, “Albert Einstein 1931.” Near fine with light toning to the endpapers in the scarce original dust jacket which is in good condition with some wear. Translated and edited with an introduction by Leon Simon. Exceptionally rare signed.

Einstein was a prominent supporter of both Labor Zionism and efforts to encourage Jewish-Arab cooperation. He supported the creation of a Jewish national homeland in the British mandate of Palestine but was opposed to the idea of a Jewish state "with borders, an army, and a measure of temporal power." In a letter to Jawaharlal Nehru dated June 13, 1947, he asserted, "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, though bereft of all the rights and protections which even the smallest people normally has...Zionism offered the means of ending this discrimination." Einstein's speeches, lectures, and letters concerning Zionism were first published in 1930 by The Soncino Press and eleven of these essays were later collected in The World as I See It, published in 1933, which Einstein dedicated "to the Jews of Germany".