Albert Einstein must have been seriously distressed when he learned that in the grand foyer of the Berlin Philharmonic there were gathered a group of scientists willing to “purify German physics” of believers in relativity. We are in 1920, he is still a year away from winning the Nobel Prize and the most bizarre insults are already raining down on him: plagiarist, Moscow agent, Dadaist scientist. The most benevolent perceive his rabbinic gift for elucidating complex propositions, as when a journalist asked him to explain the theory of relativity: “Matter tells space how to curve. That's all”.
In his formidable essay Genius and anxiety. How the Jews changed the world (2019), Norman Lebrecht asks the – no less Jewish – question of “to what extent is Einstein Jewish”, after rescuing the German scientist's notes where he expresses his belief that “Judaism deals exclusively with the moral attitude towards life.” of every human being, which is sacred, the supreme value to which all values are subordinated and which is part of the whole that we have called the Universe.” He is asked by the United States to raise funds for a Hebrew university in Jerusalem. There he is received as a celebrity, plays the violin in the mansions of millionaires and explains to the Washington congressmen “why the feeling of the passage of time is faster if you are next to a beautiful girl, but if you sit over a fire hot, a minute seems like hours.” He declares himself a Zionist, but on a trip to Palestine he observes the chassidim who sway praying in front of the Western Wall: “A sad image of men with a past, but no future,” he writes. Hitler becomes chancellor when the philosopher and scientific genius is already adopted by the United States, where he accepts a professorship at Princeton.
The figure of Einstein is the metaphor of a library, because it dissolves any supremacy. It is appropriate to remember it in a historical moment of “political relativity” characterized by the war in Gaza, after seventy-five years of conflicts, massacres and deportations, but the time that the Hamas pogrom of October 7 lasted in which 1,400 Israelis died It seems like an eternity, if we consider the morass that has reached the cultural organizations and institutions of Germany and the United States, maximizing the cruel impact that the war is having in the Strip, with pulverized neighborhoods and blockade of supplies “until completely destroying and killing Hamas” (Netanyahu).
The millionaires of the same Jewish capital that recruited Einstein, so decisive in elite North American universities, now threaten to withdraw their financial support if their rectors do not adopt a clear and unequivocal stance against the “barbaric murders of innocent Israeli civilians at the hands of terrorists.” ” and prevent demonstrations by pro-Palestinian student groups that accuse Israel of committing genocide. At the University of Pennsylvania, Chancellor Liz Margill resigned after refusing to tell Congress that such a call for genocide would violate the university's code of conduct (which includes free expression of opinion). The chancellor of Harvard, Caudine Gay, stated in similar terms that “anti-Semitic speech, when it becomes conduct that amounts to harassment, bullying, intimidation, is punishable conduct and we take action”: “So the answer is Yeah, “Calling for the genocide of the Jews violates Harvard's code of conduct, correct?” insists Republican Elise Stefanik. “Again, it depends on the context,” Gay concludes.
Weeks before, the director of Artforum, David Velasco, had been fired for the publication of an open letter from the international artistic community in support of the Palestinian people, where 8,000 signatures demanded a ceasefire and humanitarian aid to Gaza. The owner of the magazine is Penske Media Corporation which, like other donors to prominent institutions and far-right pro-Israel lobbies, condemns open letters of support for Palestine and uses the repertoire of signatories as blacklists to denigrate names and careers.
The privileged Documenta of Kassel will have to restart the search process for an artistic director after the resignation en bloc of the selection committee of the 16th edition (2027)
In Germany, the situation is even worse, with closed cultural centers, biennials and canceled exhibitions of artists who are not sufficiently vehement in their rejection of Hamas terror. The privileged Documenta from Kassel will have to restart the search process for an artistic director after the en bloc resignation of the selection committee for the 16th edition (2027). They argue in their letter that they “do not see the appropriate conditions for diverse perspectives, perceptions and discourses in Germany”, after the forced resignation of Ranjit Hoskoté, who left the committee amid pressure from the German media and the government for a statement considered “anti-Semitic” that he had signed in 2019, which qualifies him as a “BDS sympathizer”, alluding to the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement on Israeli products.
“I'm not going to let you make me angry again,” Einstein swore after the rally against him at the Philharmonic. “If my theory of relativity is proven correct, Germany will consider me German and France a citizen of the world. If it turns out to be wrong, France will say that I am German and Germany will declare me a Jew.” The most brilliant demonstration of (political) relativity.
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