Chaim Weizmann
From JudaismWiki
WEIZMANN, CHAIM (1874-1952). Scientist, Zionist statesman, first President of Israel. Born in Russia, he joined the Hibbat Zion movement. His twin passions for science and Zionism were all-absorbing. At 18, he went to Germany and studied at German and Swiss universities. While still young, he made an important discovery in the chemistry of dyes, and in 1904, he became instructor in chemistry at the University of Manchester in England. During World War I, Weizmann served as the head of the British Admiralty Laboratories and developed a process for manufacturing acetone out of starches, a vital link in the production of the explosives needed in the war effort. Lloyd George records in his memoirs that, when asked how the British government might repay him, Weizmann answered, “There is only one thing I want—a national home for my people.”
Weizmann’s international Zionist role began in 1901 at the 5th Zionist Congress. Influenced by Ahad Ha-am,the philosopher of cultural Zionism, he led a group that demanded that the Zionist Organization, in addition to its political work, set up a program of cultural work in Palestine and among the Jewish masses throughout the world. In 1903, Weizmann opposed Theodor Herzl’s idea of founding a Jewish home in Uganda (since Palestine was under Turkish rule, and thus unattainable). At the Zionist Congress in 1907, Weizmann pleaded for uniting the political work for obtaining Palestine as a Jewish homeland with the practical work of immediate colonization. Throughout his Zionist career, Weizmann strove to join political, cultural, and practical Zionism in one effort.
His greatest triumph came in the midst of World War I. The good will he had gained through his scientific achievements and his war efforts helped bring about the Balfour Declaration, supporting the establishment of a Jewish National Home in Palestine. In 1918, as head of a Zionist commission to Palestine, Weizmann visited Emir Feisal of Transjordan and discussed with him the idea of peaceful relations between Jews in Palestine and the Arab world. The same year he began the realization of an old Zionist dream when he laid the cornerstone for the Hebrew University on Jerusalem’s Mt. Scopus. In 1919, Weizmann appeared before the Versailles Peace Conference together with other Zionist leaders to ask endorsement of a Jewish National Home. He was elected president of the World Zionist Organization in 1920. Anxious to obtain wide support for Zionism, Weizmann proposed, in 1923, that the World Zionist Executive be enlarged to include non-Zionists. This idea was opposed vigorously for fear of weakening the Zionist movement. By 1929, however, Weizmann had won, and the enlarged Jewish Agency came into being, with Weizmann as its president. Weizmann headed the Zionist movement as president, continuously except for the break between 1931-1935, until the British mandate began to crumble in 1946, two years before the birth of the State of Israel. Meanwhile, his scientific interests continued without interruption. He served the Hebrew University in Jerusalem (inaugurated in 1925) as chairman of the board of governors and later as honorary president. He was instrumental in the establishment of the Daniel Sieff Research Institute, which later developed into the Weizmann Institute of Science. During World War II, he was invited by President Roosevelt to come to the U.S. to work on developing synthetic rubber needed for the vast war effort.
The last years of Weizmann’s life were spent in two battles. On the political front he fought for a Jewish State before the various commissions investigating Palestine and before the United Nations. His other struggle was with growing blindness and failing health. The first battle was successful. The UN voted to partition Palestine into an Arab and a Jewish state, and on the day that the British left Palestine, the State of Israel was proclaimed. Weizmann lived to witness Israel’s victory over the Arab invaders and to open the first session of the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, on February 14, 1949. Two days later, the Knesset elected Chaim Weizmann the first president of the reborn State of Israel. At his death he was honored by the world and mourned by his people.
