Chaim Azriel Weizmann ( KYME WYTES-mən; 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.
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. His father was a timber merchant. 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. 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. 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, 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), Kurt Prüfer, 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. 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, 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. 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. 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.
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. 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 30000 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.