D O C U M E N T 5 0 8 O N S P I N O Z A ’ S G O D 7 1 7 Published in New York Times, 25 April 1929, p. 6. [33 272]. Also published under the title “”Professor Einstein Declares His Faith in Spinoza’s God” in Jewish Daily Bulletin, 28 April 1929, p. 3, and under the title “Einstein e Dio” in Italian in Osservatore Romano, 24 May 1929, p. 3. [1] Einstein had been staying with Willy and Grete Lebach in Düsseldorf since 17 April (see Doc. 505 and Abs. 1121). Herbert S. Goldstein (1890–1970) was a prominent American rabbi and Jewish leader and founder of the orthodox Institutional Synagogue in New York. [2] Baruch (Benedictus) de Spinoza. Einstein’s first reference to his belief in “Spinoza’s God” was expressed in “Answer to Questions on Religion,” 14 December 1922 (Vol. 13, Doc. 398). For a poem on Spinoza’s Ethics, see Doc. 171. [3] Cardinal William Henry O’Connell (1859–1944) was the archbishop of Boston. On 7 April, O’Connell had attacked Einstein’s theories at a communion breakfast of members of the New England Province of College Catholic Clubs of America in Boston. He declared that Einstein’s “so- called theories” seemed “nothing short of an attempt at muddying the waters so that without perceiv- ing the drift innocent students are led away into a realm of speculative thought, the sole basis of which […] is to produce universal doubt about God and His creation.” Although he did “not wish to accuse Einstein at present of deliberately wishing to destroy the Christian faith and the Christian basis of life,” he “half suspect[ed] that if we wait a little longer we will find he unquestionably will ultimately reveal himself in his attitude. In a word, the outcome of this doubt and befogged speculation about time and space is a cloak beneath which lies the ghastly apparition of atheism” (see Jewish Daily Bul- letin, 9 April 1929). [4] Elsa Einstein. Einstein’s position had been conveyed by a dispatch from the Associated Press in Berlin two weeks earlier (see Jewish Daily Bulletin, 10 April 1929). In reaction, O’Connell issued a statement on 12 April in which he claimed that “ ‘behind the Einstein cloak lurks the spectre of atheism.’ Einstein, he said, is not ‘a true scientist,’ and added that since the delivery of his address on Sunday he had gathered new facts and is now convinced that Einstein’s theory is ‘false in its construc- tion, plagiaristic in its main statement and atheistic in its tendencies.’” (see Jewish Daily Bulletin, 14 April 1929). O’Connell’s full statement of 12 April was published in the Jewish Daily Bulletin on 18 April 1929.