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The Southern Israelite
Page 9
Or. Cyrus idler's fCelcome Address To Einstein
11 men arc agreed that, in the dis-
t past, the great gift of the Jewish
pie to civilization was the Bible—
,,t collected literature of a thousand
ars upon which much of the moral
law and of the social order of the world
rests.
But it is unthinkable that the mental
energy of a group with a cultural back
ground of several thousand years should
have grown sterile. Mankind and we
ourselves have been much concerned
as to the direction in which our par
ticular abilities during these past two
thousand years have been exerted.
Some have indicated banking, trade
and commerce; others medicine, law or
music. But a careful analysis shows
that the greatest ability of the Jews
has been not in these fields, but in
the rather abstruse discipline of mathe
matics. During the Middle Ages, both
as intermediaries and by original con
tributions, our strength lay in mathe
matics and astronomy. Steinschneider,
the great hitsorian and bibliographer,
listed 252 names of Jewish mathemati
cians in that period.
The Rabbis of Spain especially de
voted themselves to mathematics and
physics. Abraham Judaeus, called the
Prince, of the twelfth century, wrote
extensively on geometry and on the
plan of the heavens. His books were
translated into Latin and were used
by all the students of his day.
Levi ben Gcrshon, Gersonides, of
Provence, was an astronomer who in
vented an instrument which he called
“Jacob’s Staff" in effect a quadrant
to determine the Right Ascension of
the sun and stars and the camera ob-
scura is likewise ascribed to him.
Crescas, who lived in the fourteenth
century, was greatly concerned with
the problems of space, vacuum and in
finity. He foreshadowed a new con
ception of the universe and his works
were the logical forerunners of Spi
noza.
Another name which deserves to he
recalled is that of Abraham Zacuto,
who was teacher of astronomy at Sala
manca and Astronomer Royal to King
Lmanuel of Portugal in 1492. His tables
were used by Columbus and the copy
still exists with the autograph notes
in the Columbina at Seville.
Coming down to almost our own day
is the imposing figure of James Joseph
Sylvester, denied his B.A. at Cambridge
because he declined to subscribe to the
Thirty-nine Articles, yet successively
teacher and professor at the Univer
sity of Virginia, at Woolwich, Johns
Hopkins, ending his career at Oxford
and memorialized for his important con
tributions to higher mathematics by a
medal of the Royal Society of London.
I have made this brief recital not for
the purpose of inflicting an historical
sketch, but rather to indicate that our
distinguished guest is not an isolated
phenomenon among the Jewish people,
but rather the flowering of many cen-
tmies of endeavor.
It is a source of pride to all Ameri
cans that under the clear skies of Cali
fornia with the aid of the finest as
tronomical and physical apparatus ever
devised, surroundd by his own fellow-
members of the American Philosophical
Society, men of the rank of Michelson,
Milliken, Hale, Campbell, St. John and
Miller, these formulae and theories
have been painstakingly weighed and
have not been found wanting. Truly
in this restless and difficult world it
was an awe-inspiring spectacle to
watch great men sitting together con
templating and endeavoring to solve
the mysteries of the universe. And the
leader among these was our guest
whom we salute as the first intellect
of our time—hut withal, so kindly and
so human that we are not abashed in
his presence. We dare proudly hail
him as a companion who, for this night
at least, puts aside the abstract prob
lems of the cosmos, and coming down
to earth joins us in an endeavor in
behalf of a small country on the sur
face of this small planet; a country
precious by reason of association and
hope to us all—the Holy Land, which
we would restore to its ancient glory.
Master of great thoughts for the
whole world, w p e acclaim thee our
brother in Zion’s cause.
National Officers of American Palestine Campaign
StPH L
HT MAM
Dr. Adler, Felix M. Warburg, L ? eut l 2 < ^ ) e [3J ) o r fc^he^ewisl^ Agency in^ooieration with the Keren
Honorary Chairmen of the effort to raise $2,500,OUU i
Ha T.° d and K h r°r h - tm ,u n Straus Jr Rabbi Abb. HUM Silver are the national chairmen.
“ i "' Solomon Lowenstein is ...ocia.e trea.urer and Joaeph C. Hyman
is the honorary secretary. ^^^_....