Eccentric amateur scientist Elazar Mei-Zahav was way ahead of his time. He died unrecognized, but his ideas live on

“Don’t just throw away this empty box!” This pithy appeal, intended as part of an advertising campaign for recycling cigarette boxes in the middle of World War Two, reflects the intricate personality of Elazar Mei-Zahav, lawyer, amateur scientist and philosopher, and early environmentalist. Deposited in the Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People, his correspondence is sometimes fascinating, often tiresome, and always far ahead of its time.

Mei-Zahav was born Ludwig Goldwasser on April 13, 1896, in Kraków. He grew up in Leipzig and, after excelling at school, enlisted in the German army in World War I. In 1917, Corporal Goldwasser was captured by the British and spent two years in a Scottish PoW camp. Returning to Germany, he studied law and became a very active Zionist, even cofounding a fraternity called “Hatikwah.”

While working as an attorney in Leipzig, Goldwasser received a doctorate in law, married in 1932, and had three sons. He turned down postdoctorate work for “Zionist reasons” – presumably his plans to emigrate to Mandate Palestine. Then came Kristallnacht, landing him and some thirty thousand other Jewish men in concentration camps on that infamous night in November 1938. Released from Buchenwald just three weeks later, he emigrated to Israel as soon as possible.

In 1939, Goldwasser settled in Bnei Brak, where he became fluent in Hebrew and changed his name to Elazar Yisrael Mei-Zahav (a direct translation of the German Goldwasser) in 1946.

 

Proving the Impossible

Mei-Zahav’s writings reflect his search for scientific truth. Determined to prove God’s existence, he started a book on the subject, which unfortunately remained untitled and unpublished. Pitching his manuscript to German publisher Felix-Meiner Verlag – a specialist in philosophy – in 1979, the author boasted:

I’m not just a lawyer. For more than fifty years, I’ve also been very interested in philosophy and astrophysics, areas to which my inner inclinations led me soon after my dissertation (which, by the way, I completed with the highest honors at the University of Leipzig) and to which I have since devoted all my time. In short, the result of [my] intensive studies [has been] the discovery of a verifiable scientific formula hitherto presumed impossible – [proving] the existence of the netherworld, or, simply speaking, of the one concealed behind it: God, the Creator of heaven and earth.

Despite his fascination with abstract concepts such as the divine nature of the universe, Mei-Zahav was extremely concerned with practical environmental issues. He wrote a book in English glamorously titled The Reclamation of Raw Materials from Their Waste (also never published) and invented several devices, including a booster to facilitate the ignition of combustion engines. He even came up with an egg preservative (see “recipe” below) and a formula for paper varnish.

Not above the smallest detail, Mei-Zahav saw recycling empty cigarette packs as an opportunity to reuse valuable resources. He devoted considerable thought to an ad campaign for the project:

Don’t just throw away this empty box! It’s made of a raw material whose import […] weighs heavily on our trade balance. Collect the empty boxes of our brands […] and deliver them in packages to […].

Mei-Zahav founded Paldust Dust Removal and Reclamation Co., leaving no stone unturned in his search for partners in “waste removal and reclamation concessions.” onMei-Zahav received nothing but rejection letters, each filed tidily away in his correspondence. For instance, Steel Brothers wrote stiltedly:

June 25, 1943

We thank you for your letter dated 23rd […], which, in original, is returned herewith. We are not interested in your proposition and suggest your writings in the connection might well be addressed to the Controller of Salvage.