Chaim Azriel Weizmann ( ; 27 November 1874 – 9 November 1952) was an Israeli statesman, biochemist, and Zionist leader who served as president of the Zionist Organization and later as the first president of Israel. He was elected on 16 February 1949, and served until his death in 1952. Weizmann was instrumental in obtaining the Balfour Declaration of 1917 and convincing the United States government to recognize the newly formed State of Israel in 1948.
As a biochemist, Weizmann is considered to be the 'father' of industrial fermentation. He developed the acetone–butanol–ethanol fermentation process, which produces acetone, n-butanol and ethanol through bacterial fermentation. His acetone production method was of great importance in the manufacture of cordite explosive propellants for the British war industry during World War I. He founded the Sieff Research Institute in Rehovot (later renamed the Weizmann Institute of Science in his honor), and was instrumental in the establishment of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Biography
Chaim Weizmann was born in the village of Motal, located in what is now Belarus and at that time was part of the Russian Empire in 1874. He was the third of 15 children born to Oizer and Rachel (Czemerinsky) Weizmann.Chaim Weizmann Of Israel Is Dead His father was a timber merchant.Brown, George Ingham (1998) The Big Bang: A History of Explosives, Sutton Publishing p. 144 From ages four to eleven, he attended a traditional cheder, or Jewish religious primary school, where he also studied Hebrew. At the age of 11, he entered high school in Pinsk, where he displayed a talent for science, especially chemistry. While in Pinsk, he became active in the Hovevei Zion movement. He graduated with honors in 1892.
In 1892, Weizmann left for Germany to study chemistry at the Technische Hochschule in Darmstadt. To earn a living, he worked as a Hebrew teacher at an Orthodox Jewish boarding school.Geoffrey Lewis, Balfour and Weizmann: The Zionist, the Zealot and the Emergence of Israel, A & C Black, 2009 In 1894, he moved to Berlin to study at the Technische Hochschule Berlin.
While in Berlin, he joined a circle of Zionist intellectuals. In 1897, he moved to Switzerland to complete his studies at the University of Fribourg. In 1898, he attended the Second Zionist Congress in Basel. That year he became engaged to Sophia Getzowa. Getzowa and Weizmann were together for four years before Weizmann, who became romantically involved with Vera Khatzman in 1900, confessed to Getzowa that he was seeing another woman. He did not tell the family he was leaving Getzowa until 1903. His fellow students held a mock trial and ruled that Weitzman should uphold his commitment and marry Getzowa, even if he later divorced her. Weizmann ignored their advice.
Of Weizmann's fifteen siblings, ten immigrated to Palestine. Two also became chemists; Anna (Anushka) Weizmann worked in his Daniel Sieff Research Institute lab, registering several patents in her name. His brother, Moshe Weizmann, was the head of the Chemistry Faculty at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Two siblings remained in the Soviet Union following the Russian Revolution: a brother, Shmuel, and a sister, Maria (Masha). Shmuel Weizmann was a dedicated Communist and member of the anti-Zionist Bund movement. During the Stalinist "Great Purge", he was arrested for alleged espionage and Zionist activity, and executed in 1939. His fate became known to his wife and children only in 1955.Family Trials Maria Weizmann was a doctor who was arrested as part of Stalin's fabricated "Doctors' plot" in 1952 and was sentenced to five years imprisonment in Siberia. She was released following Stalin's death in 1953,Roman Brackman, Israel at High Noon: From Stalin's Failed Satellite to the Challenge of Iran, Enigma Books, 2006 p. 113. and was permitted to emigrate to Israel in 1956. During World War I, another sister, Minna Weizmann, was the lover of a German spy (and later Nazi diplomat), , and worked as a spy for Germany in Cairo, Egypt (then wartime British protectorate) in 1915. Minna was outed as a spy during a trip to Italy and was deported back to Egypt to be sent to a British POW camp. Back in Cairo, she successfully persuaded the consul of the Russian Czar to provide her safe passage out, and en route to Russia, she managed to reconnect with Prüfer via a German consulate. Minna was never formally charged with espionage, survived the war, and would eventually return to Palestine to work for the medical service of the Zionist women's organization, Hadassah.
Weizmann married Vera Khatzmann, with whom he had two sons. The elder son, Benjamin (Benjie) Weizmann (1907–1980), settled in Ireland and became a dairy farmer. The younger one, Flight Lieutenant Michael Oser Weizmann (1916–1942), fought in the Royal Air Force during World War II. While serving as a pilot in No. 502 Squadron RAF, he was killed when his plane was shot down over the Bay of Biscay in February 1942.Casualty Details Commonwealth War Graves Commission His body was never found and he was listed as "missing". His father never fully accepted his death and made a provision in his will, in case he returned. He is one of the British Empire's air force casualties without a known grave commemorated at the Air Forces Memorial at Runnymede in Surrey, England.
His nephew Ezer Weizman, son of his brother Yechiel, a leading Israeli agronomist,Yechiel Weizman Another Brother of Dr. Weizman, Dies in Israel became commander of the Israeli Air Force and also served as President of Israel.
Chaim Weizmann is buried beside his wife in the garden of his home at the Weizmann estate, located on the grounds of the Weizmann Institute, named after him.
Academic and scientific career In 1899, he was awarded a PhD in organic chemistry.Biography of Chaim Weizmann That year, he joined the Organic Chemistry Department at the University of Geneva. In 1901, he was appointed assistant lecturer at the University of Geneva.
In 1904, he moved to the United Kingdom to teach at the Chemistry Department of the University of Manchester as a senior lecturer. He joined Clayton Aniline Company in 1905 where the director Charles Dreyfus introduced him to Arthur Balfour, then Prime Minister.
In 1910, he became a British citizen when Winston Churchill as Home Secretary signed his papers, and held his British nationality until 1948, when he renounced it to assume his position as President of Israel.Weizmann Reveals Truman Promised Negev to Jews; Surrenders His British Citizenship Chaim Weizmann and his family lived in Manchester for about 30 years (1904–1934), although they temporarily lived at 16 Addison Road in London during World War I.
In Britain, he was known as Charles Weizmann, a name under which he registered about 100 research patents. At the end of World War II, it was discovered that the SS had compiled a list in 1940 of over 2800 people living in Britain, which included Weizmann, who were to have been immediately arrested after an invasion of Britain had the ultimately abandoned Operation Sea Lion been successful.Schellenberg, Walter (2001) Invasion, 1940: The Nazi Invasion Plan for Britain, p. 260. Little Brown Book Group. . Accessed at the Imperial War Museum
Discovery of synthetic acetone
While serving as a lecturer in Manchester he became known for discovering how to use bacterial fermentation to produce large quantities of desired substances. He is considered to be the father of industrial fermentation. He used the bacterium Clostridium acetobutylicum (the Weizmann organism) to produce acetone. Acetone was used in the manufacture of cordite explosive propellants critical to the Allied war effort (see Royal Naval Cordite Factory, Holton Heath). Weizmann transferred the rights to the manufacture of acetone to the Commercial Solvents Corporation in exchange for royalties.Local Industry Owes Much to Weizmann Winston Churchill became aware of the possible use of Weizmann's discovery in early 1915, and David Lloyd George, as Minister of Munitions, joined Churchill in encouraging Weizmann's development of the process. Pilot plant development of laboratory procedures was completed in 1915 at the J&W Nicholson & Co gin factory in Bow, London, so industrial scale production of acetone could begin in six British distilleries requisitioned for the purpose in early 1916. The effort produced tonnes of acetone during the war, although a national collection of horse-chestnuts was required when supplies of maize were inadequate for the quantity of starch needed for fermentation. The importance of Weizmann's work gave him favour in the eyes of the British Government, this allowed Weizmann to have access to senior Cabinet members and utilise this time to represent Zionist aspirations.
After the Shell Crisis of 1915 during World War I, Weizmann was director of the British Admiralty laboratories from 1916 until 1919. In April 1918 at the head of the Jewish Commission, he returned to Palestine to look for "rare minerals" for the British war effort in the Dead Sea. Weizmann's attraction for British Liberalism enabled Lloyd George's influence at the Ministry of Munitions to do a financial and industrial deal with Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI) to seal the future of the Zionist homeland.as reported by C.P.Scott in Wilson, pp. 333–334 Tirelessly energetic Weizmann entered London again in later October to speak for a solid hour with the Prime Minister, propped by The Guardian and his Manchester friends. At another conference on 21 February 1919 at Euston Hotel the peace envoy, Lord Bryce was reassured by the pledges against international terrorism, for currency regulation and fiscal controls.Wilson, Scott's Diaries, p. 369
Establishment of scientific research institutes
Concurrently, Weizmann devoted himself to the establishment of a scientific institute for basic research in the vicinity of his estate in the town of Rehovot. Weizmann saw great promise in science as a means to bring peace and prosperity to the area. As stated in his own words "I trust and feel sure in my heart that science will bring to this land both peace and a renewal of its youth, creating here the springs of a new spiritual and material life. [...] I speak of both science for its own sake and science as a means to an end." His efforts led in 1934 to the creation of the Daniel Sieff Research Institute (later renamed the Weizmann Institute of Science), which was financially supported by an endowment by Israel Sieff in memory of his late son. Weizmann actively conducted research in the laboratories of this institute, primarily in the field of organic chemistry. He offered the post of director of the institute to Nobel Prize laureate Fritz Haber, but took over the directorship himself after Haber's death en route to Palestine.
During World War II, he was an honorary adviser to the British Ministry of Supply and did research on synthetic rubber and high-octane gasoline.
Zionist activism
Weizmann was absent from the first Zionist conference, held in 1897 in Basel, Switzerland, because of travel problems, but he attended the Second Zionist Congress in 1898 and each one thereafter. Beginning in 1901, he lobbied for the founding of a Jewish institution of higher learning in Palestine. Together with Martin Buber and Berthold Feiwel, he presented a document to the Fifth Zionist Congress highlighting this need especially in the fields of science and engineering. This idea would later be crystallized in the foundation of the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology in 1912.Carl Alpert, TECHNION: The Story of Israel's Institute of Technology.