Chaim Azriel Weizmann was a Russian-born biochemist, Zionist leader and Israeli statesman who served as president of the Zionist Organization and later as the first president of Israel.
94 Facts About Chaim Weizmann
2.
Chaim Weizmann was elected on 16 February 1949, and served until his death in 1952.
3.
Chaim Weizmann was born in the village of Motal, located in what is Belarus and at that time was part of the Russian Empire.
4.
Chaim Weizmann was the third of 15 children born to Oizer and Rachel Weizmann.
5.
In 1892, Chaim Weizmann left for Germany to study chemistry at the Polytechnic Institute of Darmstadt.
6.
Getzowa and Chaim Weizmann were together for four years before Chaim Weizmann, who became romantically involved with Vera Khatzman in 1900, confessed to Getzowa that he was seeing another woman.
7.
Chaim Weizmann did not tell the family he was leaving Getzowa until 1903.
8.
Two became chemists; Anna Chaim Weizmann worked in his Daniel Sieff Research Institute lab, registering several patents in her name.
9.
Shmuel Chaim Weizmann was a dedicated Communist and member of the anti-Zionist Bund movement.
10.
Chaim Weizmann's fate became known to his wife and children only in 1955.
11.
Maria Chaim 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.
12.
Chaim Weizmann was released following Stalin's death in 1953, and was permitted to emigrate to Israel along with her husband in 1956.
13.
Chaim Weizmann married Vera Khatzmann, with whom he had two sons.
14.
The elder son, Benjamin Chaim Weizmann, settled in Ireland and became a dairy farmer.
15.
The younger one, Flight Lieutenant Michael Oser Chaim Weizmann, fought in the Royal Air Force during World War II.
16.
Chaim Weizmann's body was never found and he was listed as "missing".
17.
Chaim Weizmann 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.
18.
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.
19.
Chaim Weizmann joined Clayton Aniline Company in 1905 where the director Charles Dreyfus introduced him to Arthur Balfour, then Prime Minister.
20.
Chaim Weizmann is considered to be the father of industrial fermentation.
21.
Chaim Weizmann used the bacterium Clostridium acetobutylicum to produce acetone.
22.
Chaim Weizmann transferred the rights to the manufacture of acetone to the Commercial Solvents Corporation in exchange for royalties.
23.
The importance of Chaim Weizmann's work gave him favour in the eyes of the British Government, this allowed Chaim Weizmann to have access to senior Cabinet members and utilise this time to represent Zionist aspirations.
24.
Concurrently, Chaim Weizmann devoted himself to the establishment of a scientific institute for basic research in the vicinity of his estate in the town of Rehovot.
25.
Chaim Weizmann saw great promise in science as a means to bring peace and prosperity to the area.
26.
Chaim Weizmann actively conducted research in the laboratories of this institute, primarily in the field of organic chemistry.
27.
Chaim Weizmann 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.
28.
Chaim 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.
29.
Chaim Weizmann was head of the Democratic Fraction, a group of Zionist radicals who posed a challenge to Herzlian political Zionism.
30.
Chaim Weizmann was mentor to Harry Sacher, Israel Sieff and Simon Marks, and formed a friendship with Asher Ginzberg, a writer who pushed for Zionist inclusivity and urged against "repressive cruelty" to the Arabs.
31.
Chaim Weizmann regularly traveled by train to London to discuss spiritual and cultural Zionism with Ginzberg, whose pen name was Ahad Ha'am.
32.
Chaim Weizmann stayed at Ginzberg's home in Hampstead, whence he lobbied Whitehall, beyond his job as Director of the Admiralty for Manchester.
33.
Chaim Weizmann first visited Jerusalem in 1907, and while there, he helped organize the Palestine Land Development Company as a practical means of pursuing the Zionist dream, and to found the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
34.
Many of Chaim Weizmann's contacts revealed the extent of the uncertainty in Palestine.
35.
From 1914 to 1918, Chaim Weizmann developed his political skills mixing easily in powerful circles.
36.
James de Rothschild advised Chaim Weizmann seek to influence the British Government.
37.
Ecstatic, Chaim Weizmann returned to Westminster to arrange a meeting with Balfour, who was on the War Council.
38.
Whilst some of the leading members of Britain's Jewish community regarded Chaim Weizmann's program with distaste, The Future of Palestine, known as the Samuel Memorandum, was a watershed moment in the Great War and annexation of Palestine.
39.
Chaim Weizmann did not attend the meeting of Jewry's ruling Conjoint Committee when it met the Zionist leadership on 14 April 1915.
40.
Chaim Weizmann envisioned a Jewish Community worldwide so that integration was complementary with amelioration.
41.
In 1915, Chaim Weizmann began working with Sir Mark Sykes, who was looking for a member of the Jewish community for a delicate mission.
42.
Chaim Weizmann met the Armenian lawyer, James Malcolm, who already knew Sykes, and British intelligence, who were tired of the oppositional politics of Moses Gaster.
43.
Chaim Weizmann was determined to replace the Chief Rabbi as Jewish leader of Zionism.
44.
Chaim Weizmann had the "matter in hand" when he met Sokolow and Malcolm at Thatched House on Monday 5 February 1917.
45.
Chaim Weizmann had a considerable following, yet was not involved in the discussions with Francois Georges-Picot at the French embassy: a British Protectorate, he knew would not require French agreement.
46.
Chaim Weizmann was characteristically wishing to reward his Jewish friends for loyalty and service.
47.
On 6 February 1917 a meeting was held at Dr Moses Gaster's house with Chaim Weizmann to discuss the results of the Picot convention in Paris.
48.
Sokolow and Chaim Weizmann pressed on with seizing leadership from Gaster; they had official recognition from the British government.
49.
Chaim Weizmann issued a statement on 11 February 1917, and on the following day, they received news of the Kerensky take over in Petrograd.
50.
The Triple Entente of Arab-Armenian-Zionist was fantastic to Chaim Weizmann leaving him cold and unenthusiastic.
51.
Chaim Weizmann was genuinely overjoyed to convince the former Prime Minister in April 1917.
52.
On 31 October 1917, Chaim Weizmann became president of the British Zionist Federation; he worked with Arthur Balfour to obtain the Balfour Declaration.
53.
Chaim Weizmann was generally associated with the centrist General Zionists and later sided with neither Labour Zionism on the left nor Revisionist Zionism on the right.
54.
Chaim Weizmann's personality became an issue but Chaim Weizmann had an international profile unlike his colleagues or any other British Zionist.
55.
Chaim Weizmann was a key holder at the Ministry of Supply by late 1917.
56.
Chaim Weizmann considered such a peace at odds with Zionist interests.
57.
Chaim Weizmann was even accused of "possibly prolonging the war".
58.
The Zionists had been approached by the Germans, Chaim Weizmann told William Ormsby-Gore but the British miscalculated the effects of immigration to Palestine, and over-estimated German control over Ottoman Empire.
59.
Chaim Weizmann had seen peace with Ottoman Empire out of the question in July 1917.
60.
Chaim Weizmann had managed to gain the support of International Jewry in Britain, France and Italy.
61.
Chaim Weizmann considered that the issuance of the Balfour Declaration was the greatest single achievement of the pre-1948 Zionists.
62.
Chaim Weizmann believed that the Balfour Declaration and the legislation that followed it, such as the Churchill White Paper and the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine all represented an astonishing accomplishment for the Zionist movement.
63.
On 3 January 1919, Chaim Weizmann met Hashemite Prince Faisal to sign the Faisal-Chaim Weizmann Agreement attempting to establish the legitimate existence of the state of Israel.
64.
Chaim Weizmann stated at the conference that "the Zionist objective was gradually to make Palestine as Jewish as England was English" Shortly thereafter, both men made their statements to the conference.
65.
Chaim Weizmann remained loyal to Britain, tried to shift the blame onto dark forces.
66.
In 1921 Chaim Weizmann played an important role in supporting Pinhas Rutenberg's successful bid to the British for an exclusive electric concession for Palestine, in spite of bitter personal and principled disputes between the two figures.
67.
An American view is Chaim Weizmann persuaded the British cabinet to support Zionism by presenting the benefits of having a presence in Palestine in preference to the French.
68.
Chaim Weizmann agreed with the policy but was afraid of the rise of the Nazis.
69.
In 1936 and early 1937, Chaim Weizmann addressed the Peel Commission, whose job it was to consider the working of the British Mandate of Palestine.
70.
Chaim Weizmann insisted that the Mandate authorities had not driven home to the Palestinian population that the terms of the Mandate would be implemented, using an analogy from another part of the British Empire:.
71.
Chaim Weizmann made very clear in his autobiography that the failure of the international Zionist movement to encourage all Jews to act decisively and efficiently in great enough numbers to migrate to the Jerusalem area was the real cause for the call for a Partition deal.
72.
Again, Chaim Weizmann blamed the Zionist movement for not being adequate during the best years of the British Mandate.
73.
Chaim Weizmann considered himself, not Ben-Gurion, the political heir to Theodor Herzl.
74.
Dr H Rosenblum, the editor of Haboker, a Tel Aviv daily that later became Yediot Aharonot, noted in late 1945 that Dr Weizmann deeply resented the sudden intrusion and reception of Norman when he arrived in Britain.
75.
At that moment, Dr Chaim Weizmann turned his back on the speaker and remained in this bodily and mental attitude until the guest had finished his speech.
76.
Chaim Weizmann secured for Norman a desirable but minor position with the British Economic and Scientific Mission in Washington, DC.
77.
At the outbreak of war in Europe in 1939, Chaim Weizmann was appointed as an Honorary adviser to the British Ministry of Supply, using his extensive political expertise in the management of provisioning and supplies throughout the duration of the conflict.
78.
Chaim Weizmann was frequently asked to advise the cabinet and brief the Prime Minister.
79.
In 1942, Weizmann was invited by President Franklin D Roosevelt to work on the problem of synthetic rubber.
80.
Chaim Weizmann proposed to produce butyl alcohol from maize, then convert it to butylene and further to butadiene, which is a basis for rubber.
81.
In May 1942, the Zionists met at Biltmore Hotel in New York, US; a convention at which Chaim Weizmann pressed for a policy of unrestricted immigration into Palestine.
82.
Chaim Weizmann met Churchill on 4 November 1944 to urgently discuss the future of Palestine.
83.
Chaim Weizmann agreed that Israel should annex the Negev desert, where no one was living.
84.
In July 1944, Chaim Weizmann pleaded on Brand's behalf but to no avail.
85.
Chaim Weizmann promoted a plan to bomb the death camps, but the British claimed that this was too risky, dangerous and unfeasible, due to technical difficulties.
86.
On 20 September 1945, Chaim Weizmann presented the first official documents to the British, USA, France, and Soviets, for the restitution of property, and indemnification.
87.
Chaim Weizmann demanded that all heirless Jewish property should be handed over as part of the reparations for the rehabilitation of Nazi victims.
88.
Two days after the proclamation of the State of Israel, Chaim Weizmann succeeded Ben-Gurion as chairman of the Provisional State Council, a collective presidency that held office until Israel's first parliamentary election, in February 1949.
89.
Chaim Weizmann was elected president by the Knesset on 17 February 1949.
90.
Chaim Weizmann met with United States President Harry Truman and worked to obtain the support of the United States; they discussed emigration, for the establishment of the State of Israel.
91.
President Chaim Weizmann lived at Rehovot, where he regularly received the Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion into his garden.
92.
Chaim Weizmann was denied any actualisation of the political role he had hoped for by the Left, and had to be consoled with the Weizmann Institute's successes.
93.
When Chaim Weizmann died on 9 November 1952, he was buried at Rehovot.
94.
Chaim Weizmann was acknowledged as a patriot long before Israel had even begun to exist.