Albert Einstein
Photo: AFP
Einstein didn't see Israel's scientific potential
'Israel is intellectually alive and interesting, but has very narrow possibilities,' the theoretical physicist wrote in 1954 to his friend Jewish-American scientist David Joseph Bohm, who was considering moving to Israel.
Theoretical physicist Albert Einstein did not see the scientific potential in Israel, according to a letter he wrote his friend Jewish-American scientist David Joseph Bohm in 1954, warning him not to make Aliyah.
The letter, which will be displayed to the public for the first time in a museum being built by illusionist Uri Geller in Jaffa, was given to Geller by Bohm along with one of Einstein's pipes.
Albert Einstein in 1951 with Israel's first prime minister David Ben-Gurion (Photo: AFP)
"Israel is intellectually alive and interesting, but has very narrow possibilities," Einstein wrote to Bohm.
"To go there with the intention to leave on the first occasion would be regrettable," he warned.
Two years before warning his friend not to move to Israel, Einstein turned down an offer from Israel's first Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion, to serve as Israel's second president, citing his desire to dedicate himself completely to science.
Part of Einstein's letter to Bohm
Bohm, a Jewish physicist who took part in the Manhattan Project to develop the first atom bomb, did end up moving to Israel in 1955 despite Einstein's warnings. He taught at the Technion in Haifa for two years, and it was in Israel that he met his wife Sarah.
He returned to Britain in 1957 to continue his research and discovered the Aharonov–Bohm effect, showing how a magnetic field could affect a region of space in which the field had been shielded, although its vector potential did not vanish there.
Later, it was Bohm who examined Uri Geller's skills for the British intelligence agency MI5.
