How Albert Einstein Almost Became Israel's President

Nadene Goldfoot                                                                    

Albert Einstein and David ben Gurion,  Prime Minister of Israel, who made the offer to Einstein on November 17, 1952.  .

Einstein was offered the Presidency of Israel.  This is what happened.
"Einstein's response:

I am deeply moved by the offer from our State of Israel, and at once saddened and ashamed that I cannot accept it. All my life I have dealt with objective matters, hence I lack both the natural aptitude and the experience to deal properly with people and to exercise official functions. Therefore I would also be an inappropriate candidate for this high task, even when my old age didn’t interfere with my forces more and more [...] I am the more distressed over these circumstances because my relationship to the Jewish people has become my strongest human bond, ever since I became aware of our precarious situation among the nations of the world."  

David ben Gurion, b: 1886-d: 1973 was born in Plonsk, Poland and was Israel's 1st Prime Minister.  He had arrived in Palestine in 1906.  A former teacher, "and having led the struggle to establish the State of Israel in May 1948, Ben-Gurion became Prime Minister and Defense Minister. "  He said, "Without moral and intellectual independence, there is no anchor for national independence. 

Albert Einstein was born in Ulm, Germany in 1879 and died in 1955 in Princeton, New Jersey, USA.  He was a Nobel Prize winner in Physics.  The man, a genious, had an IQ of 180.  He was also an Ashkenazi Jew.   He had said, "The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it."  He is also remembered to have said, "Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."
                                 

                                   A Younger Albert Einstein 

Chaim Weizmann, born in Motol, Russia in 1874, was the first president of Israel in 1948.  "Weizmann was also a chemist who developed the acetone–butanol–ethanol fermentation process, which produces acetone through bacterial fermentation.  It is said that England would not have won the first World War without his process.    He founded the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel.  When he died at the age of 78 in November 1952, ben Gurion offered the job first to Einstein.    Weizmann is remembered to have said, "I head a nation of a million presidents".

Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/c/chaim_weizmann.html#joO4WMsLSSuC1YOQ.99

Resource:  http://www.lettersofnote.com/2010/02/president-einstein.html

https://www.google.com/#q=albert+einstein

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaim_Weizmann
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/d/david_bengurion.html