l i v I N T R O D U C T I O N T O V O L U M E 1 6 In January 1928, he declined an offer to join the board of governors of the Technion in Haifa, as he was “fed up” with the situation at the Hebrew University. Referring to what he perceived as the overuse of his name for the benefit of public causes, he informed the German-Jewish architect Alex Baerwald that he was “greatly mistaken regarding the grandiose effects my shopworn name can achieve” among the Jews (Doc. 134). While governance of the Hebrew University preoccupied Einstein far more than any other single Jewish cause during this period, he was nevertheless occasionally required to comment on more general matters pertaining to the German-Jewish community, relations between Jews and Gentiles, the genesis of his own Jewish identity, and his views on a personal deity. In December 1927, he played violin pieces by Schubert and Beethoven at a charity event for the Jüdische Altershilfe.[29] The following year, the same organization published a brief work by Arnold Zweig for which Einstein wrote a preface (Doc. 116). In June 1928, he was asked by a left-wing Czech journal for his opinion on relations between Chris- tians and Jews and on the “Christianization of the Jews or the Judaization of the Christians.” It was misleading to phrase the question in that manner, he replied. Both communities had developed along each other and had influenced each other. The more pertinent issue was why so many Europeans and Americans made such a fuss about the Jews (Doc. 233). Einstein’s fiftieth birthday sparked self-reflection on the genesis of his Jewish identity. Thanking Zionist leader Menachem Ussishkin, he claimed that he had “turned 35 years old, without, as it were, knowing that he was a Jew.” In retrospect, Einstein reminisced that his closest friends in his Swiss years had been Jews. But he maintained that the environment of Berlin had enlightened him as to his affilia- tion with the Jewish people (Doc. 457).[30] This volume contains two instances in which Einstein refuted the concept of a personal deity. In August 1927, in response to a query by a prominent Jewish busi- nessman from Denver, Einstein stated that he could not believe in a personal God. His religiosity consisted, he said, “in a humble admiration of the infinitely superior spirit that reveals to the few what we can know about reality by using our weak and frail reason” (see Doc. 33). In April 1929, he became embroiled in an international controversy on religious belief and atheism when the archbishop of Boston, Cardinal William Henry O’Connell, denounced Einstein at a communion breakfast for members of the New England Province of College Catholic Clubs of America. O’Connell had argued that the sole aim of Einstein’s “so-called theories” was “to produce universal doubt about God and His creation.” Although he did not assume that Einstein deliberately wished “to destroy the Christian faith and the Christian basis of life,” for him