Albert Einstein
The typed letter, which the Jewish physicist corrected and signed by hand, addresses “my participation in the atom bomb project.”
The 85-year-old letter, along with the original envelope, will be auctioned by Nate D. Sanders Auctions, with a minimum bid listed at $20,000.
The legendary physicist would go on to call the correspondence “the one great mistake in my life.”
The menu, which H. G. Wells, George Bernard Shaw and the second Lord Rothschild also signed, is already going for more than double its pre-auction estimate.
Benyamin Cohen, who penned a new book on the Jewish genius, told JNS about how Einstein was the classic absent-minded professor, had his brain stolen, was offered the Israeli presidency and who ... snored.
“We are laying the foundations for a vital living archive of the writings of one of the greatest minds in the history of humanity.”
Einstein’s scientific achievements “continue to impact all of our lives, from lasers and nuclear energy to GPS and space travel,” says the university’s president.
“Mind you, it never takes the form of brutal speech or action, but rather, it brews, all the more intensely, under the surface,” wrote the physicist and mathematician in 1936.
“It is a powerful document, written at a crucial time in Jewish history, and a reminder of the challenges the new Jewish state would have to overcome,” said Raab Collection president Nathan Raab.
Addressed to those from his wife to his assistant, the letters reflect the physicist’s mindset before, during and after the Holocaust.
Just in time for his 140th birthday, Hebrew University reveals the content of newly acquired manuscripts.
The escalation in the violence emanating from Gaza on the very day after Israel permitted the transfer of millions of Qatari-sourced dollars into the coastal enclave underscores the futility of persisting with conventional wisdom.