Albert Einstein on antisemitism and Zionism, 1921 ~ Elder Of Ziyon

Wednesday, November 26, 2025

Albert Einstein on antisemitism and Zionism, 1921

The Jewish Chronicle published an essay by Albert Einstein in 1921 about antisemitism and Zionism. It is not so well known and has some interesting parts.

He discussed why right-wing antisemites proudly identify as such, but socialist antisemites do not, which is as true today as it was then:

In many instances anti-Semitism is a question capable of a political solvent. It often, in other words, depends on the political party to which a man belongs whether he becomes a professed anti-Semite. A Socialist, for instance, even if he is a convinced anti-Semite, would not make his creed known, or act up to it, because it is not in the programme of his party. Among Conservatives, however, it is different. Anti-Semitism in their case arises from a desire to exacerbate for their party purposes the ill-feeling inherent in the populace.

Since the socialist, progressive Left define themselves as being against bigotry, they must hide their bigotry behind other labels - nowadays, anti-Zionism.

he describes how antisemitism in Germany was more pronounced than in Switzerland or England, especially against Jews who fled Eastern Europe.

Until two years ago I lived in Switzerland, and during my stay there I did not realise my Judaism. There was nothing that called forth any Jewish sentiments in me. When I moved to Berlin all that changed. There I saw the trouble many young Jews were in. I saw how, amid anti-Semitic surroundings, a well-ordered study, and with it a way to a safe existence, was made impossible for them. This refers specially to the Eastern-born Jews living there, who were exposed continually to provocation. I do not believe that their number is a large one in Germany as a whole. Only in Berlin are they at all numerous. Nevertheless, their presence has become a public question. At meetings, conferences, and in newspapers there is a movement for the disposing of them quickly or for the interning of them. Housing difficulties and the economic depression are used as arguments for these harsh measures. Facts are being exaggerated intentionally, in order to influence public opinion. These Eastern-born Jews are made the scapegoat of all ailments of German political life of to-day, and for all the after effects of the war. Instigation against these unfortunate fugitives who only just saved themselves from that hell which Eastern Europe represents to-day, has become an effective political weapon which all demagogues successfully use. When the Government intended the expulsion of these Jews, I stood up for them, and pointed out in the “Berliner Tageblatt” the inhumanity and foolishness of such a measure.

Einstein then goes on to describe how his experience of German antisemitism turned him into a Zionist, noting that denying Jewish peoplehood is itself deplorable - a point I made recently when I wrote that today's anti-Zionism is indeed antisemitic for that very reason.

These and similar happenings have brought about in me the Jewish National sentiment.
I am a National Jew in the sense that I ask for the preservation of the Jewish, as of every other, nationality. I look upon Jewish nationality as a fact, and I think that every Jew ought to come to definite conclusions on Jewish matters based upon this fact. I look upon the rise of Jewish self-assertion to be, too, in the interest of non-Jews. That was the main motive of my joining the Zionist movement. For me Zionism is not merely a question of colonisation. The Jewish nation is a living thing, and the sentiment of Jewish Nationalism must be developed both in Palestine and everywhere else.

To deny the Jews nationality in the Diaspora is, indeed, deplorable. If one adopts the point of view of confining Jewish effort to nationalism to Palestine, then one, to all intents and purposes, denies the existence of a Jewish people. In that case one should have the courage to carry through, in the quickest and most complete manner, entire assimilation.

We live in a time of intense and perhaps exaggerated nationalism. But my Zionism does not exclude in me cosmopolitan views. I believe in the actuality of Jewish nationality, and I believe that every Jew has duties towards his co-religionists. The meaning of Zionism is thus many-sided. It opens out to Jews who are despairing in the Ukrainian hell or in Poland hopes for a more humane existence. Through the return of the Jews to Palestine, and so back to a normal and healthy economic life, Zionism means, too, a productive function, which should enrich mankind at large.

But the principal point is that Zionism must tend to strengthen the dignity and self-respect of the Jews in the Diaspora. I have always been annoyed by the undignified assimilationist cravings and strivings which I have observed in so many of my friends. Through the founding of a Jewish Commonwealth in Palestine, the Jewish people will again be in the position to bring their creative abilities into unhindered full play. Through the erection of the Hebrew University and similar institutions, the Jewish people will not only help their own national renaissance, but will enrich their moral culture and knowledge, and, as centuries ago, be directed to new and better ways than those which present world-conditions necessarily entail for them.