The day of reckoning has arrived.

[Crossless2.0]

Yes, Rik, Einstein was concerned about the rise of anti-Semitism and traveled to the U.S. to raise support for a Jewish center of learning on behalf of his friend Weizmann, as well as to deliver a number of addresses to universities and scientific societies. But you're missing the point. The reason his voice was seen as valuable on that issue was because of his celebrity; he was world famous, having been awarded the Nobel Prize for physics that very year. He wasn't widely known for Jewish or Zionist activism. He was known for his scientific achievements, and it was his fame for those accomplishments that gave him the high public profile he used to address other matters.

It doesn't change a thing, or matter in the least, that few of the people who lined the streets actually understood his work. The press had written extensively about him and people who didn't understand a thing about special or general relativity "knew" that his work was considered revolutionary. I dare say that most of them flocked to see him because they had been told that he had fundamentally changed the way we understand the universe -- not because he was going to solicit support for Weizmann's project. Hell, he was as famous, in his way, as Babe Ruth was!

I can't speak for my grandparents, who might well have been too young in 1921 to have noted Einstein's visit halfway across the country, but I'd be surprised if my great-grandparents had been unaware of his visit, since it was widely reported. Did they understand his work? I doubt it. But they sure as hell wouldn't have known of him because he was going to give an address on behalf of a Zionist organization.

Stick to your metaphysical cant. It's where your true 'talent' lies.

You may take that last word in both senses.