“There’s no question that basically, somewhere way down, I’m an Orthodox Jew. … In fact, to this very day, if you ask for my religion, I say ‘Orthodox Hebrew’ — in the sense that the church I’m not attending is that one. If I were to go to church, that’s the one I would go to. That’s the one I failed. It doesn’t mean I’m something else.”
On this date in 1898, physicist Israel “Isidor” Isaac Rabi was born to Polish-Jewish parents in Rymanów, then part of Austria-Hungary. He emigrated to New York City as a toddler with his parents, Janet (née Teig) and David Rabi, who spoke only Yiddish and were observant Orthodox Jews.
Rabi (pronounced RAH-bee) grew up in a poor household that took in boarders to live with them in their two-room flat in Brooklyn, with his father working as a tailor when he could get work. When Rabi discovered a book explaining Copernicus’ theory of heliocentrism, he told declared “Who needs God?” He said Jack London’s writings made him a Marxist by the time he was 13 years old.
To assuage his disappointed but tolerant parents, he agreed to prepare a bar mitzvah “drasha,” a scholarly discourse sourced in the Talmud. He delivered the speech in Yiddish about how an electric light works. (Tablet, “Of Judaism, but Not in It,” Aug. 21, 2023)
As a scholarship student, he had studied electrical engineering, chemistry and physics at Cornell and Columbia universities, completing a doctorate in 1927. The year before that, he married Helen Newmark. They had two daughters, Nancy (b. 1929) and Margaret (b. 1934).
He joined the Columbia faculty in 1929, where he developed techniques for using nuclear magnetic resonance that led to the 1944 Nobel Prize in Physics. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) would eventually become an important tool in medicine. He was also among the first U.S. scientists to work on the cavity magnetron used in microwave radar and microwave ovens.
He also worked during World War II on radar at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and was a consultant for the Manhattan Project building the first atomic bomb. After the war, he served on the advisory committee for the Atomic Energy Commission and chaired it from 1952-56. He strongly opposed development of the hydrogen bomb.
Rabi was science adviser to President Eisenhower, helped establish the Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island, N.Y., and was U.S. delegate to UNESCO. He retired from teaching in 1967 at Columbia but remained active and held the title of professor emeritus and special lecturer until his death.
He softened his views on the God of the bible as he aged and said he didn’t consider himself an atheist, but certainly didn’t embrace faith the way his ancestors did. Asked if he attended synagogue on Yom Kippur, he said “No.” (Jewish Telegraphic Agency, May 29, 1987)
He died of cancer at age 89 at home in Manhattan. His wife Helen survived him and lived to be 102. (D. 1988)
PHOTO: Rabi in 1944; Nobel Foundation public domain photo
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