4 4 0 D O C . 6 0 O N PA L E S T I N E . F I N A L V E R S I O N
Published in Jüdische Rundschau, 1 July 1921, p. 371. An autograph draft [28 010] consisting of two
unnumbered pages on letterhead of Hotel Commodore, New York, is preserved and corresponds to
the first portion of this document, which ends before the account of Einstein’s trip to America begins.
The salutation in the draft has been deleted and the Roman numeral “V” has been added. An “X” has
also been inserted following the second paragraph of the draft. Significant variations between the
draft and the published text are noted. The text of the autograph draft is published in Einstein 1934a,
pp. 99–101.
[1]The address was delivered on the evening of 27 June 1921 in the Blüthner-Saal in Berlin to a
capacity crowd (see Berliner Tageblatt, 28 June 1921, Evening Edition, p. [2]).
[2]Einstein’s emphasis on the importance of Palestine as a universal symbol of Jewish cultural unity
beyond its function as the goal of Jewish settlement is one of the chief constituents of Einstein’s cul-
tural Zionism. See Doc. 57, note 19, where he argued against restricting “Jewish ethnical nationalism
to Palestine.”
[3]Following “Sie waren arm” in the text, Einstein has inserted “politisch entrechtet” in the draft.
[4]The paternal grandfather, Abraham Ruppert Einstein (1808–1868), a merchant, had lived in the
small Swabian market town of Buchau on Lake Feder, moving to Ulm in 1862; Einstein’s maternal
grandfather, Julius Dörzbacher (1816–1895), of Jebenhausen in Swabia, who changed his name to
Koch, became a prosperous grain-trading merchant in Cannstatt near Stuttgart (see Vol. 1, “Albert
Einstein—Beitrag für sein Lebensbild,” p. xlix).
[5]Much as Einstein’s “semi-romantic” view of earlier generations of German Jewry draws on a
longing for lost community, so did contacts with local Jewish populations in Eastern Europe by Ger-
man Jews serving with the military in the First World War evoke a nostalgia for a way of life that was
felt to be alien, but whose tight-knit warmth was envied (see Mendes-Flohr 1998, pp. 232–233, and
Bendix 1986, pp. 67–70).
In the Kingdom of Württemberg, where both of Einstein’s grandfathers had lived, emancipation
conferred civil rights with significant qualifications on Jews at the beginning of the nineteenth centu-
ry. Only in 1828 was a law granting freedom in the choice of trade enacted. Full legal equality was
accorded in 1862 (see Fölsing 1993, p. 16).
[6]In place of “Fühlung,” Einstein has written “Stellungen” in the draft.
[7]In place of the following sentence, Einstein has written “Auf dieses spontane Gefühl der Fremd-
heit ist in letzter Instanz der Antisemitismus zurückzuführen” in the draft. The typesetter has clearly
bowdlerized the sentence in the text, first, by allowing the sense of “otherness” (“Fremdheit”) to arise
from the “diminution of energy” (“Energieverminderung”), and second, by reversing the cause-and-
effect relationship of anti-Semitism and otherness in the draft. See Docs. 34 and 35, in which Einstein
found the psychological root of anti-Semitism in the otherness of the Jews.
[8]In place of “Druckmittel,” Einstein has written “Traktate” in the draft.
[9]Einstein had made the same point in an interview before departing Germany for America: “A
Jewish Palestine would contribute to a recovery among Jews of a sense of national self-worth, which
has in many cases been lost to them under the moral pressure of public opinion in their host nations.
This lack of self-worth can lead to an accommodation of life-styles to the non-Jewish environment
that is reminiscent of the mimicry of butterflies. It can best be made good by Jews as a community
constructing a cultural artifact, which they can regard with joy and pride” (“Ein jüdisches Palästina
werde dazu beitragen, daß die Juden die nationale Selbstachtung wieder erlangen, die ihnen unter
dem moralischen Druck der öffentlichen Meinung ihrer Wirtsvölker vielfach abhanden gekommen
sei. Dieser Mangel an Selbstachtung der zu einer an die Mimikry der Schmetterlinge erinnernden
Anschmiegung der Lebensformen an die der nichtjüdischen Umgebung führe, könne am besten
dadurch behoben werden, daß die Juden als Gesamtheit ein Kulturwerk errichten, auf das sie mit
Freude und Stolz blicken können.” Vossische Zeitung, 27 March 1921, Morning Edition, Supplement
1, p. 1).
[10]In place of “Palästinas,” Einstein has written “unseres Stammlandes” in the draft.
[11]The corresponding portion of the autograph text ends at this point. The remainder of Einstein’s
speech was delivered “extemporaneously” (“in freier Form”; Berliner Tageblatt, 28 June 1921,
Evening Edition, p. [2]).
[12]Einstein had spent the months of April and May 1921 in the United States helping to raise