Prof. Einstein Praises Effort to Make Talmud Accessible

Prof. Chaim Tchernowitz, noted Talmudic scholar who is Professor at the Jewish Institute of Religion in New York, has received a statement from Prof. Albert Einstein in which the latter praises highly the plan of Prof. Tchernowitz’s work on the Talmud. In his statement Professor Einstein says:

“I am personally acquainted with Professor Tchernowitz, and I have the highest respect for him and his work. The scientific organization and comprehensive exposition in accessible form of the Talmud has a twofold importance for us Jews. It is important in the first place that the high cultural values of the Talmud should not be lost to modern minds among the Jewish people nor to science, but should operate further as a living force. In the second place, the Talmud must be made an open book to the world, in order to cut the ground from under certain malevolent attacks, of anti-Semitic origin, which borrow countenance from the obscurity and inaccessibility of certain passages in the Talmud.

“To support this cultural work would thus mean an important achievement for the Jewish people.”