JERUSALEM (JTA) — Israel’s Cabinet unanimously approved the establishment of an Albert Einstein museum in Jerusalem.
The museum will be built on the campus of the Hebrew University, to which Einstein left his personal papers and the intellectual copyright to them. Einstein also left the university the right to use his image; the museum reportedly will be constructed in the shape of his head.
The government allocated about $260,000 for the initial planning phases of the museum celebrating the father of the theory of relativity.
“This is not just a tourist matter," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday after the vote. "This is an issue of the greatest value that will grant recognition to the sparks of genius that were hidden in our people and which broke through with Einstein.”
The decision came a week after the Limmud FSU conference in Princeton, N.J., emphasized the accomplishments of Einstein, who taught at Princeton University. More than 650 young Russian-American Jews from across the United States came together at the conference for a festival of Jewish learning.
