Einstein: "Jewish Smarts Serve One Well"

For about a third of the last century, one could write to the most famous person in the world and receive an answer. Miss Inge Stern, a German émigrée to Los Angeles, asked Einstein for a favor involving, apparently, his photo and the name of his sons; here he grants it, and then adds that he is glad she has found her way so well. “Jewish smarts,” he sums up, “serve one well.”
 
To be a Jew, Einstein felt, meant that history had imposed upon one a severe struggle – which could, and would, be overcome by intelligence, achievement and righteousness. That, and some “smarts," would allow for those condemned to wander in the Diaspora to continue to exist as the oldest of living peoples.

Typed Letter Signed (“A. Einstein”), in German, 1 page, quarto, on his personal letterhead, 112 Mercer Street, Princeton, New Jersey, January 23, 1936. To Miss Inge Stern in Los Angeles.