CHANUKAH 5786 Sec. B, P19
A newly surfaced letter attributed to Albert Einstein offers a rare, intimate look at the man behind the equations, including one striking note in which the physicist reflects with warmth and candor on a former research assistant who helped him work on the theory of relativity.
Discovered last week by Tel Aviv’s Gnazim Institute, the world’s largest archive of Hebrew literature, and shared exclusively with The Press Service of Israel, the document adds fresh texture to Einstein’s persona as both a towering scientist and a deeply human, sometimes sentimental figure.
The letter has not yet been authenticated but a preliminary analysis says it is genuine.
At the center of the discovery is a German typed letter from April, 1953, signed by Einstein in his own handwriting, in which he praises his “exceptional” research assistant, Jacob Grommer, a Jewish mathematician from Brest Litovsk (Brisk), Lithuania (today Brest, Belarus).
Grommer performed critical mathematical calculations for Einstein.
Einstein also demonstrates his knowledge of, and empathy for, Grommer’s health struggles.
Einstein describes Grommer as someone who “was always ready to advise and help others.
“He came to Berlin and worked with me as a private assistant on the theory of relativity. We published several papers together. He stayed with me until the early 1930s, and then moved to Minsk following a respectable job offer. Mr. Grommer was not only a sharp thinker but also a man of wide-ranging interests, especially in matters related to Judaism, and he was always ready to advise and help others,” Einstein wrote of Grommer in the letter.
The tone is unusually personal for Einstein, according to Gnazim’s archivist Amir Ben-Amram.
“It presents Einstein in a human light and reminds us that he had research assistants, who are usually forgotten. It shows that Einstein respected them. Einstein even wrote in an article that Grommer did all the mathematical calculations for him,” Ben-Amram said, referring to the 1925 article, “Unified Field Theory of Gravitation and Electricity,” in which the great scientist praises Grommer.
While Einstein’s breakthroughs are often told as feats of solitary brilliance, the correspondence hints at a more social, collaborative process — a reminder that even the most brilliant minds rely on the people around them, Ben-Amram believes.
The letter also shows Einstein’s compassion for Grommer’s struggle with acromegaly, a rare hormonal condition in adults that causes bones, organs and other tissues to grow abnormally large.
“If we take into account that he suffered from a severe illness that distorted his face and weakened his body,” Einstein wrote of Grommer in the letter, “then one can imagine how exceptional his qualities and abilities must have been.”
Grommer later became a professor at Belarus State University thanks to Einstein’s recommendation, Ben-Amram said.
The letter was addressed to Nahum Hinitz, an author in Israel who was then editing a book about the Jewish community in Brisk. Hinitz was interested in Grommer and asked Einstein for information about him. Einstein’s reply was discovered while the Gnazim team researched Hinitz’s letters. “One of our workers was going over the Hinitz archive and suddenly came across this letter,” Ben-Amram said.
Ben-Amram said there was no reason to question the letter’s authenticity, especially because the Hinitz-Einstein correspondence is mentioned in one of Hinitz’s books. “It may have been typed by his secretary, but he signed it by hand.”
Gal Wiener, chief executive of Jerusalem-based Winner’s Auctions, which has sold Einstein handwritten notes in the past, told TPS-IL that upon preliminary inspection of a photo — without testing the paper or ink — Einstein’s signature seems genuine.
The chair of the Gnazim Institute, Adiva Geffen, hopes for more discoveries: “We have an empire of literature here, with over 900 archives of the greatest Hebrew writers since the mid-19th century. We uncover remarkable gems every day, and this Einstein letter is one of them.”
