What Albert Einstein Was Thinking

Prior to the creation of the State of Israel, two Jewish terrorist groups were working to cleanse Palestine of its Arab inhabitants and its British occupiers. The more brutal of these groups was Lohamei Herut Yisrael (Fighters for the Freedom of Israel) also known as the LEHI or the Stern Gang after its founder Avraham Stern.

Much of the financial support for these Jewish terrorists came from the United States. The Stern Gang received money collected under the more perfidious name, American Friends of the Fighters for the Freedom of Israel. Mr. Shepard Rifkin was the executive director after the UN Partition of Palestine and prior to the creation of Israel in May 1948.

Against his better judgment Rifkin solicited Albert Einstein to help the Stern Gang raise American money for arms to drive out the Arabs and help create a Jewish state. On April 10th, the day after the infamous massacre of Arabs at Deir Yassin, Einstein replied calling the Stern Gang terrorists and misled criminals.

Einstein's single-page letter on his embossed stationery (see below) was auctioned at Sotheby's on June 21, 2007. It was purchased by Daniel McGowan, executive director of Deir Yassin Remembered, for $8,500 plus $1,700 commission and $175 shipping. It will become a part of the Deir Yassin Remembered Archives, which includes documents, photographs, and audio accounts of the massacre.

April 10, 1948

Mr. Shepard Rifkin
Exec. Director
American Friends of the Fighters
for the Freedom of Israel
149 Second Ave.
New York 3,N.Y.

Dear Sir:

When a real and final catastrophe should befall us in Palestine the first responsible for it would be the British and the second responsible for it the Terrorist organizations build up from our own ranks [Jewish].

I am not willing to see anybody associated with those misled and criminal people.

Sincerely yours,
Albert Einstein