Hawking’s love-hate relationship with Israel
British astrophysicist Prof. Stephen Hawking apparently had a love-hate relationship with Israel – the affection from the 1970s until about a decade ago, and the disaffection more recently.
He visited the country four or five times, even accepting the prestigious Wolf Prize in Physics 30 years ago. He disputed Hebrew University physicist Prof. Jacob Bekenstein on whether a black hole can radiate, but in the end the two physicists in the 1970s jointly developed the theory of Bekenstein-Hawking entropy – a measure of the unavailable energy in a closed thermodynamic system which is also usually considered to be a measure of the system’s disorder.
In 2006, he was guest of honor at a reception by the Israel Academy of Sciences and the Humanities at Jerusalem’s King David Hotel.
But in his later years, he was influenced by American linguist, cognitive scientist, historian, social critic and extreme left-wing professor Noam Chomsky, who was a fierce anti-Zionist.
Because of his support of the Palestinian cause, Chomsky reportedly persuaded Hawking not to speak at a Jerusalem conference hosted by then-president Shimon Peres.
Prof. Asher Yahalom, Ariel University’s associate dean of the Engineering Faculty, told
The Jerusalem Post that he spent time with Hawking at the Cambridge University in 2005/2006 and had some other encounters – some electronically – with him, but “I didn’t meet him a lot, because, due to his illness, it was hard to reach him.... He was surrounded by secretaries and assistants, and it was hard for him to communicate, as he was unable to speak for many years.”
Still, said Yahalom, he was “a very interesting human phenomenon because he didn’t surrender to his illness. He overcame it despite his limitations and managed to continue to live, marry [and divorce] twice and have three children. If doctors tell you that you have two years to live, you don’t want to waste your time. He was very focused on one thing. He succeeded because of his disability.”
During a visit to Israel, Hawking said with much humor: “The downside of my celebrity is that I cannot go anywhere in the world without being recognized. It is not enough for me to wear dark sunglasses and a wig. The wheelchair gives me away. People want to be photographed with me, but it can be a nuisance when I am in a hurry.”