Einstein Institute of Mathematics

The Einstein Institute of Mathematics is housed in Manchester House on the Edmond J. Safra Campus at Givat Ram, where its library has been located since 1958–59.[1] The associated Mathematics and Computer Science Library is listed at postal code 9190401.[5] The institute is part of the Hebrew University's Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences.[6]

The library occupies space in Manchester House, which was built with its library in 1957 and designed by architects Heinz Rau and David Reznik.[1] Rau's architectural record separately lists the "Einstein Institute Mathematics Building" at the Hebrew University among his completed works, dated 1959.[7]

Before settling at Givat Ram, the institute and its library occupied several locations across Jerusalem. After the Hebrew University was inaugurated on Mount Scopus in 1925, one of its original buildings there — identifiable by the Pythagorean theorem inscribed in stone above its door — housed the Einstein Mathematical Institute.[8] The university was granted land at Givat Ram on June 2, 1958, as its student body and academic programs expanded. After 1967, when the original Mount Scopus campus was gradually rebuilt, Givat Ram remained home to the institute.[9]

The institute's library history dates the founding of the Mathematics Institute to the Hebrew University's opening celebrations on April 1, 1925. Groundbreaking for its building took place the previous day, March 31, and plans for a dedicated mathematics library were included in the original plan.[1]

The same institutional history separately says that the Board of Governors decided to establish the Mathematics Institute at its meeting in Munich in September 1925. Edmund Landau, then a professor at the University of Göttingen, was assigned to found it and arrived in Jerusalem in October 1927.[1] In a 2024 interview, institute member Elon Lindenstrauss identified Albert Einstein and Landau among the founders and described both as leading mathematicians of their era.[4]

Mathematician Binyamin Amira (1896–1968), born in Mogilev-Podolsk and brought to Palestine in 1900, played a central role in the institute's early development.[10] Appointed as Landau's assistant in 1926, Amira supervised construction of the institute, directed the acquisition of books and reprints, and organized the library.[1] He also founded the Journal d'analyse mathématique, which appeared in 17 volumes from 1955 to 1966.[10] Other mathematicians who continued Landau's work included Fekete, Fraenkel, and Levitzki.[1]

A 5-by-7-inch glass dry-plate negative taken by the American Colony Photo Department in Jerusalem between 1925 and 1934 provides early photographic documentation. Its catalog title is "Zionist activities in Palestine. The Hebrew University. Class in mathematics. Einstein Institute."[11] Mathematics was added to the Hebrew University in 1927; a science and mathematics faculty was later constituted and awarded its first degrees in 1931.[12]

Building the institute's library was a priority from its earliest days. Landau initiated the purchase of Felix Klein's personal mathematical collection from the University of Göttingen; it was acquired from Klein's widow with assistance from the Wattenberg donation.[1] Amira arranged shipment before Landau arrived in October 1927. The collection comprised approximately 3,000 volumes, including nineteenth-century books, periodicals, manuscripts in Klein's handwriting, and plaster models of surfaces. It became the foundation of the mathematics library and its historical holdings.[1]

The library was housed in the Philip Wattenburg building on Mount Scopus from 1928 to 1948.[1] During the War of Independence, researchers could not reach the campus, and obtaining materials became extremely difficult. On occasion, someone traveled to Mount Scopus with an armored convoy specifically to retrieve library materials.[1]

From 1950 to 1957, institute researchers used the north annex of the King David Hotel, where a new library collection was compiled alongside Landau's reprint collection.[1] Shortly before his death in 1938, Landau had arranged to send article reprints by himself and other authors to the library. From 1949 to 1967, this collection was organized and expanded so researchers could continue accessing literature while unable to reach Mount Scopus. It ultimately grew to 332 boxes containing approximately 16,000 reprints, with an index of about 6,000 authors.[1]

The library remained an integral part of the Einstein Institute of Mathematics until 1997 and subsequently also served the Institute of Computer Science.[1] From 1998 to 2003 it operated under the administrative responsibility of the Faculty of Mathematics and Science; beginning in October 2003, the Hebrew University Library Authority assumed central administration of the university's libraries.[1]

Materials related to computer science were added to the mathematics library in the early 1970s.[1] Computer science at the Hebrew University first developed within the Institute of Mathematics. An independent Institute of Computer Science was inaugurated in 1992, and in October 1999 it became the Selim and Rachel Benin School of Computer Science and Engineering.[1]

In 2010, institute colleague Alex Lubotzky described the Einstein Institute of Mathematics as Israel's leading institution in its field. Its membership at that time included Nobel laureate Robert Aumann, two Wolf Prize winners, and six Israel Prize winners.[2]

Hillel Furstenberg joined the institute as a professor in 1965 after holding academic positions at Princeton, MIT, and the University of Minnesota. His work contributed to the institute's reputation as an important international mathematics center.[13] In 2020, Furstenberg and Grigory Margulis received the Abel Prize for pioneering the use of probability and dynamics in group theory, number theory, and combinatorics, including random-walk methods used to address difficult problems across mathematics.[13]

In 2010, Elon Lindenstrauss became the first Israeli to win the Fields Medal while affiliated with the Einstein Institute.[3] His research applied probabilistic and dynamical reasoning to difficult problems in number theory.[14] Lubotzky said Lindenstrauss's work drew on methods developed by researchers at the Hebrew University.[14] Lindenstrauss received undergraduate degrees in mathematics and physics and his master's and doctorate in mathematics at the Hebrew University before becoming a professor there.[14]

Benjamin (Benji) Weiss joined the Hebrew University faculty in 1967 and maintained an office at the institute into his eighties, continuing to report for work each morning at age 85.[15] His research spans information theory, measure theory, dynamical systems, ergodic theory, and probability, and extends to more than 220 professional publications. He was named the 2026 Israel Prize laureate in mathematics.[15]

A 2025 report identified Tamar Ziegler as holder of the Henry and Mania Noskwith Chair in Mathematics at the institute.[16] Her research lies at the intersection of dynamics, additive number theory, and algebraic geometry. She has used ergodic-theory methods, including dynamics on nilmanifolds, to prove Hardy–Littlewood conjectures about prime solutions to systems of linear equations of finite complexity.[16]

David Kazhdan, also at the institute, has been described as uncovering hidden symmetries across mathematical fields and exploring their applications. He has characterized his work as finding unexpected connections between mathematical theories that may have wide long-term utility even without immediate practical applications.[17] Nathan (Nati) Linial, another institute affiliate, researches error-correcting codes, using analysis, optimization, and combinatorics to study the balance between a code's rate and the number of errors it can correct.[17]

Karim Adiprasito, identified as an institute researcher in 2022, received a European Research Council Consolidator Grant for a project titled "From Hodge Theory to Combinatorics and Geometry." His research connects combinatorics, algebra, topology, and geometry, and the project proposed a new approach to the Dodziuk–Singer conjecture.[6]

A 2011 report identified Raz Kupferman as chair of the institute. The institute had introduced an approximately two-week preparatory course for incoming students to refresh foundational knowledge before the academic year.[18]

The institute's early history involves complexities of naming and chronology that the available sources do not fully resolve. One account of Lord Balfour's 1925 visit to Jerusalem describes Chaim Weizmann connecting the visit to the Hebrew University's formal opening and to the laying of the foundation stone for what was called the "Balfour-Einstein Institute of Mathematics and Physics." The planned April 1 opening ceremony was reported to have prompted Arab protests and a delegation abroad seeking retraction of the Balfour Declaration.[19] This account does not establish whether that early institution is directly continuous with the present Einstein Institute of Mathematics.

The institute's library history records the founding date as April 1, 1925, while separately noting that the Board of Governors decided to establish the Mathematics Institute at its September 1925 meeting in Munich, without explaining the distinction between the milestones.[1] A biographical reference credits Binyamin Amira with founding an Institute of Mathematics, while an architectural reference documents an Einstein Institute Mathematics Building by 1959. Neither explicitly establishes when or through what process the institute acquired its current name.[10][7]