Einstein preferred not to learn Hebrew: Documents

By Abdel Raouf Arnaout</p> <p>JERUSALEM (AA) – An Israeli university on Wednesday published a manuscript allegedly written by Albert Einstein in which the famous physicist says he was “embarrassed” to learn Hebrew.</p> <p>“As a goy [i.e., non-Jew], you're not obligated to study the language of your forefathers, while I, as a ‘Jewish saint’, should be embarrassed by the fact that I know almost nothing,” he wrote.</p> <p>“But I prefer to be embarrassed rather than learning it [Hebrew],” Israeli daily Haaretz quoted the late scientist as saying in a letter he reportedly wrote to a friend.</p> <p>The letter is one of 110 handwritten documents, reportedly written by Einstein in German, that were recently published by Hebrew University.</p> <p>Most of the documents, Haaretz reports, were written in the period between 1944 and 1948.</p> <p>“There is also one page with a concise explanation of the basic principle underlying the physics of the atom bomb and of nuclear reactors,” the newspaper writes.</p> <p>The university acquired the trove of documents from a private U.S. collector on the occasion of Einstein's 140th birthday, which will fall on March 14.