Israel’s government cabinet on Sunday approved the establishment of an Albert Einstein Museum, to be built in Jerusalem within the Givat Ram campus of Hebrew University.
Einstein, lauded as one of the greatest scientists of all time, helped found the Hebrew University.
On Saturday night, alternate prime minister Naftali Bennett said via Twitter that while he was serving as prime minister, he had asked what was being done with the archive and writings left by the world-renowned scientist upon his death.
“Albert Einstein is an asset, the biggest brand name in the world for intelligence, science and genius,” Bennett said.
“Around the world, in China, India, the US and everywhere, Albert Einstein is synonymous with genius,” he noted, and said he hoped the new museum would “serve as a pilgrimage site for anyone who wants to become familiar with Einstein, Jewish intelligence and intelligence in general.
“Israeli teens as well as tourists and scientists from around the world will be able to receive inspiration from him,” he said.
Einstein, who was Jewish and fled Nazi Germany in 1933, was offered the chance to become Israel’s second president upon the death of Chaim Weizmann in 1952 (Israel’s first president) but declined, saying his expertise was in “objective matters” and that he lacked both “the natural aptitude and the experience to deal properly with people and to exercise official functions.”
He lived in Princeton, New Jersey until his death three years later at the age of 76.
The scientist, who had strong ties to Judaism and to Israel, bequeathed his archive and writings to Hebrew University in Jerusalem, but up to this point the school did nothing with it.
Once it is built, the museum will serve as a center for science and technology education as well as highlight the scientist’s ties to Judaism and Israel. The museum will exhibit Einstein’s writings and the rest of his archive, which presumably also contains material on his game-changing Theory of Relativity and his work on quantum mechanics theory, which won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1921.
The construction of the museum is budgeted at NIS 41 million.
