View source for Chaim Weizmann

{{Short description|Israeli statesman and British chemist (1874–1952)}}
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{{Use dmy dates|date=August 2023}}
{{Infobox officeholder
| name                = Chaim Weizmann
| native_name         = {{Nobold|{{Script/Hebrew|חיים ויצמן}}}}
| native_name_lang    = he
| image               = Flickr - Government Press Office (GPO) - President Chaim Weizmann (retouched).jpg
| caption             = Weizmann in 1949
| office              = 1st [[President of Israel]]
| term_start          = 17 February 1949
| term_end            = 9 November 1952
| primeminister       = [[David Ben-Gurion]]
| predecessor         = Himself<br />(as Chairman of the Provisional State Council)
| successor           = [[Yitzhak Ben-Zvi]]
| order2              = 2nd [[President of Israel|Chairman of the Provisional State Council of Israel]]
| term_start2         = 16 May 1948
| term_end2           = 17 February 1949
| primeminister2      = David Ben-Gurion
| predecessor2        = [[David Ben-Gurion]]
| successor2          = Himself<br />(as President)
| birth_name          = Chaim Azriel Weizmann
| birth_date          = {{birth date|1874|11|27|df=y}}
| birth_place         = [[Motal]], Russian Empire
| death_date          = {{death date and age|1952|11|9|1874|11|27|df=y}}
| death_place         = [[Rehovot]], Israel
| citizenship         = {{ubl|Russian Empire|United Kingdom|Israel}}
| party               = [[General Zionists]]
| spouse              = [[Vera Weizmann]]
| children            = 2
| relations           = {{plainlist|
* [[Maria Weizmann]] (sister)
* [[Anna Weizmann]] (sister)
* [[Minna Weizmann]] (sister)
* [[Ezer Weizman]] (nephew)
}}
| profession          = [[Biochemist]]
| alma_mater          = {{ubl|[[Technische Universität Darmstadt]]|[[Technische Universität Berlin]]|[[University of Fribourg]]}}
| known_for           = '''Politics''': helped establish the State of Israel.<br />
'''Science''': [[industrial fermentation]], [[acetone–butanol–ethanol fermentation]] process, critical to the WWI Allied war effort. Founder of the Sieff Research Institute (now [[Weizmann Institute of Science|Weizmann Institute]]), helped establish the [[Hebrew University of Jerusalem]].
| signature           = Chaim Weizmann Signature.svg
}}
'''Chaim Azriel Weizmann''' ({{IPAc-en|ˈ|k|aɪ|m|_|ˈ|w|aɪ|t|s|m|ən}} {{respell|KYME|_|WYTES|mən}};{{efn|{{langx|he|חיים עזריאל ויצמן|Chayyim Azri'el Vaytsman}}; {{langx|ru|Хаим Евзорович Вейцман|Khaim Evzorovich Veytsman}}}} 27 November 1874&nbsp;– 9 November 1952) was a Russian-born Israeli statesman, [[biochemist]], and [[Zionist]] leader who served as president of the [[World Zionist Organization|Zionist Organization]] and later as the first [[president of Israel]]. He was [[1949 Israeli presidential election|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 [[United States-Israeli relations#Recognition of the state of Israel|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|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==
[[File:Dr. Chaim Weizmann LCCN2014716667 (cropped).jpg|thumb|left|upright|Weizmann in 1900]]
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.<ref name=obit>[https://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/bday/1127.html Chaim Weizmann Of Israel Is Dead] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171025184909/http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/bday/1127.html |date=25 October 2017 }}</ref> His father was a timber merchant.<ref>Brown, George Ingham (1998) ''The Big Bang: A History of Explosives'', Sutton Publishing {{ISBN|0-7509-1878-0}} p. 144</ref> From ages four to eleven, he attended a traditional [[cheder]], or Jewish religious primary school, where he also studied [[Hebrew language|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.<ref name=bio>{{cite web |url=http://www.chaimweizmann.org.il/en/biography |title=Biography &#124; chaimweizmann |access-date=25 October 2017 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171025132347/http://www.chaimweizmann.org.il/en/biography |archive-date=25 October 2017}}</ref><ref name=einstein>{{cite web |url=http://einstein-website.de/biographies/weizmann_content.html |title=Short life history: Chaim Weizmann |access-date=27 October 2017 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160311013940/http://www.einstein-website.de/biographies/weizmann_content.html |archive-date=11 March 2016}}</ref>

In 1892, Weizmann left for [[German Empire|Germany]] to study chemistry at the [[Technische Universität Darmstadt|Technische Hochschule]] in [[Darmstadt]]. To earn a living, he worked as a [[Hebrew language|Hebrew]] teacher at an [[Orthodox Judaism|Orthodox Jewish]] boarding school.<ref>Geoffrey Lewis, ''Balfour and Weizmann: The Zionist, the Zealot and the Emergence of Israel'', A & C Black, 2009</ref> In 1894, he moved to [[Berlin]] to study at the [[Technische Universität Berlin|Technische Hochschule Berlin]].

While in Berlin, he joined a circle of Zionist intellectuals.<ref name=einstein/> 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]].<ref name="Rose 1986">{{cite book |last1=Rose |first1=Norman |title=Chaim Weizmann: A Biography |date=1986 |publisher=Viking Penguin, Inc. |location=New York, New York |isbn=0-670-80469-X |url=https://archive.org/details/chaimweizmannbio00rose |url-access=registration |pages=[https://archive.org/details/chaimweizmannbio00rose/page/55 55]–56}}</ref> 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.<ref name="Rose 1986" /> 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.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Hirsch |first1=Luise |title=From the Shtetl to the Lecture Hall: Jewish Women and Cultural Exchange |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SUp3AAAAQBAJ&pg=PA59 |year=2013 |publisher=University Press of America |location=Lanham, Maryland |isbn=978-0-7618-5993-2 |page=59}}</ref>

Of Weizmann's fifteen siblings, ten immigrated to [[Palestine (region)|Palestine]].<ref name=bio/> Two also became chemists; [[Anna Weizmann|Anna (Anushka) Weizmann]] worked in his Daniel Sieff Research Institute lab, registering several patents in her name.<ref name="mag"/> His brother, Moshe Weizmann, was the head of the Chemistry Faculty at the [[Hebrew University of Jerusalem]].<ref name="mag"/> Two siblings remained in the [[Soviet Union]] following the [[Russian Revolution]]: a brother, Shmuel, and a sister, [[Maria Weizmann|Maria (Masha)]]. Shmuel Weizmann was a dedicated [[Communist Party of the Soviet Union|Communist]] and member of the anti-Zionist [[Bundism|Bund movement]]. During the [[Joseph Stalin|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.<ref name="mag"/><ref name=family>[http://wis-wander.weizmann.ac.il/family-trials#.VWZhU89Viko Family Trials] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150528032105/http://wis-wander.weizmann.ac.il/family-trials#.VWZhU89Viko |date=28 May 2015 }}</ref> 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,<ref>Roman Brackman, ''Israel at High Noon: From Stalin's Failed Satellite to the Challenge of Iran'', Enigma Books, 2006 {{isbn|978-1-929-63164-3}} p. 113.</ref> and was permitted to emigrate to Israel in 1956.<ref>[https://www.jstor.org/stable/48698787 Escape through Poland: Soviet Jewish Emigration in the 50s]</ref> During [[World War I]], another sister, [[Minna Weizmann]], was the lover of a German spy (and later Nazi diplomat), {{interlanguage link|Kurt Prüfer|de}}, and worked as a spy for Germany in Cairo, Egypt (then wartime [[Sultanate of Egypt|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 [[Nicholas II of Russia|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 Women's Zionist Organization of America|Hadassah]].<ref>{{cite book | last=Anderson |first=Scott| title=Lawrence in Arabia: War, Deceit, Imperial Folly and the Making of the Modern Middle East| publisher=Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group |date=2013 | pages=128–129| location=United States | isbn=9780385532938 | url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780307476418/page/128}}</ref>

Weizmann married [[Vera Weizmann|Vera Khatzmann]],<ref>{{cite web |url=http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/weizmann-vera |title=Jewish Women Encyclopedia, Vera Weizmann |publisher=Jwa.org |access-date=8 June 2012 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120813193046/http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/weizmann-vera |archive-date=13 August 2012}}</ref> 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.<ref>[http://www.cwgc.org/find-war-dead/casualty/1531206 Casualty Details] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180216084040/https://www.cwgc.org/find-war-dead/casualty/1531206 |date=16 February 2018 }} Commonwealth War Graves Commission</ref> 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.<ref name="mag"/> He is one of the [[British Empire]]'s air force casualties without a known grave commemorated at the [[Runnymede Memorial|Air Forces Memorial at Runnymede]] in Surrey, England.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.cwgc.org/find-war-dead/casualty/1531206/WEIZMANN,%20MICHAEL%20OSER |title=Flight Lieutenant Michael Oser Weizmann &#124; War Casualty Details 1531206 |access-date=18 March 2015 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150217203016/http://www.cwgc.org/find-war-dead/casualty/1531206/WEIZMANN,%20MICHAEL%20OSER |archive-date=17 February 2015}}</ref>

His nephew [[Ezer Weizman]], son of his brother Yechiel, a leading Israeli agronomist,<ref>[https://www.jta.org/1957/07/05/archive/yechiel-weizman-another-brother-of-dr-weizman-dies-in-israel Yechiel Weizman Another Brother of Dr. Weizman, Dies in Israel] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150528035304/http://www.jta.org/1957/07/05/archive/yechiel-weizman-another-brother-of-dr-weizman-dies-in-israel |date=28 May 2015 }}</ref> became commander of the [[Israeli Air Force]] and also served as [[President of Israel]].<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/25/obituaries/ezer-weizman-former-president-of-israel-and-hero-of-1967-war.html|title=Ezer Weizman, Former President of Israel and Hero of 1967 War, Dies at 80|last1=Orme|first1=William A. Jr.|date=25 April 2005|work=The New York Times|access-date=8 December 2017|last2=Myre|first2=Greg|language=en-US|issn=0362-4331|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171208231553/http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/25/obituaries/ezer-weizman-former-president-of-israel-and-hero-of-1967-war.html|archive-date=8 December 2017}}</ref>

Chaim Weizmann is buried beside his wife in the garden of [[Weizmann House|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.<ref name="chem.unifr.ch bio">[http://www-chem.unifr.ch/en/department/chaim_weizmann/chaim_weizmann_bio Biography of Chaim Weizmann] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140203021256/http://www-chem.unifr.ch/en/department/chaim_weizmann/chaim_weizmann_bio |date=3 February 2014 }}</ref> That year, he joined the Organic Chemistry Department at the [[University of Geneva]].<ref name=bio/> In 1901, he was appointed assistant lecturer at the [[University of Geneva]].<ref name=zionism-israel>{{cite web |url=http://www.zionism-israel.com/bio/Chaim_Weizmann_biography.htm |title=Biography of Chaim Weizmann |publisher=Zionism-israel.com |access-date=8 June 2012 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120504042809/http://www.zionism-israel.com/bio/Chaim_Weizmann_biography.htm |archive-date=4 May 2012}}</ref>

In 1904, he moved to the United Kingdom to teach at the Chemistry Department of the [[University of Manchester]] as a senior lecturer.<ref name=zionism-israel/> He joined [[Clayton Aniline Company]] in 1905 where the director [[Charles Dreyfus]] introduced him to [[Arthur Balfour]], then Prime Minister.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Ayache, Georges|title=Les douze piliers d'Israël|year=2019|isbn=978-2-262-07259-9|location=Paris|pages=57|oclc=1104137945}}</ref>

In 1910, he became a [[British subject|British citizen]] when [[Winston Churchill]] as Home Secretary signed his papers,<ref>{{Cite book|last=Gilbert|first=Martin|title=Churchill and the Jews: a lifelong friendship|publisher=Henry Holt|year=2007|isbn=9781466829626|location=New York|pages=324}}</ref> and held his British nationality until 1948, when he renounced it to assume his position as President of Israel.<ref>[https://www.jta.org/1948/10/03/archive/weizmann-reveals-truman-promised-negev-to-jews-surrenders-his-british-citizenship Weizmann Reveals Truman Promised Negev to Jews; Surrenders His British Citizenship] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140220110622/http://www.jta.org/1948/10/03/archive/weizmann-reveals-truman-promised-negev-to-jews-surrenders-his-british-citizenship |date=20 February 2014 }}</ref> 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.<ref name="mag">{{cite journal |title=10 things we didn't know about Dr. Chaim Weizmann |journal=The Weizmann International Magazine of Science & People |volume=3 |date=Spring 2013 |url=http://wws.weizmann.ac.il/board/sites/board/files/internationalmagazine_vol3_-_spring_2013.pdf |access-date=18 March 2015 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150402150217/http://wws.weizmann.ac.il/board/sites/board/files/internationalmagazine_vol3_-_spring_2013.pdf |archive-date=2 April 2015}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|editor=Glenda Abramson|year=2005|title=Encyclopedia of Modern Jewish Culture|publisher=Routledge|page=950|isbn=9780415298131|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=L_FhfTvzjygC&q=%22Charles+Weizmann%22&pg=PA950|quote=As a research chemist, he registered some 100 patents under the name Charles Weizmann.|access-date=18 March 2015|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180216084040/https://books.google.com/books?id=L_FhfTvzjygC&pg=PA950&lpg=PA950&dq=%22Chaim+Weizmann%22+%22Charles+Weizmann%22&source=bl&ots=9M5Ayb5vcs&sig=yiNfTY0dn_aRgcF7hRKh30Bl7VM&hl=en&sa=X&ei=DKUJVYOIKY2XaqTtgJgB&ved=0CCoQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=%22Charles%20Weizmann%22&f=false|archive-date=16 February 2018}}</ref> At the end of [[World War II]], it was discovered that the [[Schutzstaffel|SS]] had [[The Black Book (list)|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.<ref>[[Walter Schellenberg|Schellenberg, Walter]] (2001) ''Invasion, 1940: The Nazi Invasion Plan for Britain'', p. 260. Little Brown Book Group. {{ISBN|0-9536151-3-8}}. Accessed at the [[Imperial War Museum]]</ref>

===Discovery of synthetic acetone===
{{see also|Acetone–butanol–ethanol fermentation}}
[[File:Einstein Apr.1921 SS Rotterdam 32100.jpg|thumb|upright=1.3|{{ill|Ben-Zion Mossinson|he|בן-ציון מוסינזון}}, [[Albert Einstein]], Chaim Weizmann, [[Menachem Ussishkin]] on ''[[SS Rotterdam (1908)|SS Rotterdam]]'', 1921]]

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|''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.<ref>[http://www.docstoc.com/docs/44989860/Local-Industry-Owes-Much-to-Weizmann-powder Local Industry Owes Much to Weizmann] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130525193457/http://www.docstoc.com/docs/44989860/Local-Industry-Owes-Much-to-Weizmann-powder |date=25 May 2013 }}</ref> 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|Bow]], London, so industrial scale production of acetone could begin in six British distilleries requisitioned for the purpose in early 1916. The effort produced {{gaps|30|000}} tonnes of acetone during the war, although a national collection of [[Aesculus hippocastanum|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,<ref>{{cite book |title=America in Islamistan: Trade, Oil and Blood |author=Zalloum, Abdulhay Y. |publisher=Trafford Publishing |year=2011 |isbn=9781426927928 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=r1p9yhgryOsC&pg=PA84 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171112021742/https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=r1p9yhgryOsC&pg=PA84 |archive-date=12 November 2017}}</ref> 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.<ref>as reported by C.P.Scott in Wilson, pp. 333–334</ref> 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, [[James Bryce, 1st Viscount Bryce|Lord Bryce]] was reassured by the pledges against international terrorism, for currency regulation and fiscal controls.<ref>Wilson, Scott's Diaries, p. 369</ref>

===Establishment of scientific research institutes===
[[File:ד"ר חיים ויצמן.-JNF043812.jpeg|thumb|Chaim Weizmann in 1926]]
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."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.weizmann.ac.il/Organic_Chemistry/weizlab.shtml |title=Chaim Weizmann Lab, Dept. of Organic Chemistry |publisher=Weizmann Institute |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070511004603/http://www.weizmann.ac.il/Organic_Chemistry/weizlab.shtml |archive-date=11 May 2007 }}</ref>
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, Baron Sieff|Israel Sieff]] in memory of his late son.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.weizmann.ac.il/pages/about-institute |title=About the Institute |website=Weizmann Institute of Science |language=en |access-date=15 February 2018 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170704141920/http://www.weizmann.ac.il/pages/about-institute |archive-date=4 July 2017}}</ref> 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 in Chemistry|Nobel Prize laureate]] [[Fritz Haber]], but took over the directorship himself after Haber's death en route to Palestine.<ref>{{cite journal|doi=10.1093/toxsci/55.1.1|pmid=10788553|title=Fritz Haber: 1868-1934|journal=Toxicological Sciences|volume=55|issue=1|pages=1–2|year=2000|last1=Witschi|first1=H|doi-access=free}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.weizmann.ac.il/chemistry/history |title=Faculty of Chemistry {{!}} History |website=Weizmann Institute of Science |date=23 June 2014 |language=en |access-date=15 February 2018 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170812191031/http://www.weizmann.ac.il/chemistry/history |archive-date=12 August 2017}}</ref>

During World War II, he was an honorary adviser to the British [[Ministry of Supply (United Kingdom)|Ministry of Supply]] and did research on [[synthetic rubber]] and [[Octane rating|high-octane]] gasoline.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.chem.unifr.ch/en/department/chaim_weizmann/chaim_weizmann_bio |title=Chaim Weizmann – Biography |website=University of Fribourg Department of Chemistry |access-date=15 February 2018 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150716231023/http://www.chem.unifr.ch/en/department/chaim_weizmann/chaim_weizmann_bio |archive-date=16 July 2015}}</ref>

==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 [[:de:Berthold Feiwel|Berthold Feiwel]], he presented a document to the [[Zionist Congress|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.<ref>[[Carl Alpert]], ''TECHNION: The Story of Israel's Institute of Technology''. {{ISBN|0-87203-102-0}}</ref>

Weizmann met [[Arthur Balfour]], the [[Conservative Party (United Kingdom)|Conservative]] Prime Minister who was MP for [[Manchester East (UK Parliament constituency)|East Manchester]], during one of Balfour's electoral campaigns in 1905–1906. Balfour supported the concept of a Jewish homeland, but felt that there would be more support among politicians for the then-current offer in [[Uganda]], called the [[British Uganda Programme]]. Following mainstream Zionist rejection of that proposal, Weizmann was credited later with persuading Balfour, by then the Foreign Secretary during the First World War, for British support to establish a Jewish homeland in Palestine, the original Zionist aspiration.<ref>''[[Current Biography]] 1942'', pp. 877–880.</ref> The story goes that Weizmann asked Balfour, "Would you give up London to live in [[Saskatchewan]]?" When Balfour replied that the British had always lived in London, Weizmann responded, "Yes, and we lived in [[Jerusalem]] when London was still a marsh." Nevertheless, this had not prevented naturalization as a British subject in 1910 with the help of ''[[haham]]'' [[Moses Gaster]], who asked for papers from [[Herbert Samuel]], the minister.{{citation needed|date=February 2018}}

Weizmann revered Britain but relentlessly pursued Jewish freedom.<ref>Schneer, p. 115</ref> He was head of the Democratic Fraction, a group of Zionist radicals who posed a challenge to Herzlian political Zionism. [[Israel Sieff, Baron Sieff|Israel Sieff]] described him as "pre-eminently what the Jewish people call folks-mensch ... a man of the people, of the masses, not of an elite".<ref>Lord Sieff, ''Memoirs'', p. 67{{incomplete short citation|date=March 2023}}</ref> His most recent biographers challenge this, describing him as a blatant elitist, disgusted by the masses, coldly aloof from his family, callous with friends if they did not support him, despondently alienated from Palestine, where he lived only with reluctance, and repelled by the Jewish immigrants from eastern Europe there.<ref name="Aderet" >Ofer Aderet, [https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium.highlight.MAGAZINE-this-founding-father-of-the-jewish-state-was-a-serial-cheater-who-hated-israel-1.9144888 "This Founding Father of the Jewish State Was a Serial Cheater Who Hated Israel"], ''[[Haaretz]]'', 12 September 2020.</ref>

Gradually Weizmann set up a separate following from [[Moses Gaster]] and [[Leopold Greenberg|L. J. Greenberg]] in London. Manchester became an important Zionist center in Britain. 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. He regularly traveled by train to London to discuss spiritual and cultural Zionism with Ginzberg, whose pen name was [[Ahad Ha'am]]. He stayed at Ginzberg's home in [[Hampstead]], whence he lobbied Whitehall, beyond his job as Director of the Admiralty for Manchester.{{citation needed|date=February 2018}}

[[File:Weizmann's passport photo.jpg|thumb|Weizmann's passport photo, {{Circa|1915}}]]
Zionists believed that anti-Semitism led directly to the need for a Jewish homeland in Palestine. 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]]. Although Weizmann was a strong advocate for "those governmental grants which are necessary to the achievement of the Zionist purpose" in Palestine, as stated [[First Zionist Congress|at Basel]], he persuaded many Jews not to wait for future events,
{{ blockquote|A state cannot be created by decree, but by the forces of a people and in the course of generations. Even if all the governments of the world gave us a country, it would only be a gift of words. But if the Jewish people will go build Palestine, the Jewish State will become a reality—a fact.<ref name="Weizmann1983"/>}}

During World War I, at around the same time he was appointed Director of the British Admiralty's laboratories, Weizmann, in a conversation with [[David Lloyd George]], suggested the strategy of the British campaign against the [[Ottoman Empire]]. From 1914, "a benevolent goodwill toward the Zionist idea" emerged in Britain when intelligence revealed how the Jewish Question could support imperial interests against the Ottomans.<ref>Stein, ''The Balfour Declaration'', p. 109; Samuel, Memoirs, p. 139; Schneer, p. 123</ref> Many of Weizmann's contacts revealed the extent of the uncertainty in Palestine. From 1914 to 1918, Weizmann developed his political skills mixing easily in powerful circles. On 7 and 8 November 1914, he had a meeting with [[Dorothy de Rothschild]]. Her husband [[James de Rothschild (politician)|James de Rothschild]] was serving with the French Army, but she was unable to influence her cousinhood to Weizmann's favour. However, when Weizmanm spoke to Charles, second son of [[Nathan Mayer Rothschild]], he approved the idea. James de Rothschild advised Weizmann to seek to influence the [[Government of the United Kingdom|British Government]]. By the time he reached [[Robert Cecil, 1st Viscount Cecil of Chelwood|Lord Robert Cecil]], Dr Weizmann was enthused with excitement. Cecil's personal foibles were representative of class consciousness, which the Zionists overcame through deeds rather than words. [[C. P. Scott]], the editor of ''[[The Guardian|The Manchester Guardian]]'', formed a friendship with Weizmann after the two men encountered each other at a Manchester garden party in 1915.<ref>{{cite news|last=Glancy|first=Josh|url=http://www.thejc.com/lifestyle/lifestyle-features/89026/chaim-weizmann-and-how-balfour-declaration-was-made-manchester|title=Chaim Weizmann and how the Balfour Declaration was made in Manchester|work=The Jewish Chronicle|date=1 November 2012|access-date=20 January 2016|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160506023809/http://www.thejc.com/lifestyle/lifestyle-features/89026/chaim-weizmann-and-how-balfour-declaration-was-made-manchester|archive-date=6 May 2016}}</ref> Scott described the diminutive leader as<blockquote>extraordinarily interesting, a rare combination of idealism and the severely practical which are the two essentials of statesmanship a perfectly clear sense conception of Jewish nationalism, an intense and burning sense of the Jew as Jew, just as strong, perhaps more so, as that of the German as German or the Englishman as Englishman, and secondly arising out of that and necessary for its satisfaction and development, his demand for a country, a home land which for him and for anyone during his view of Jewish nationality can be no other that the ancient home of his race.<ref>Weizmann, ''Trial and Error'', i, p. 149</ref></blockquote>

Scott wrote to the [[Liberal Party (United Kingdom)|Liberal Party]]'s Lloyd George who set up a meeting for a reluctant Weizmann with [[Herbert Samuel]], President of the Local Government Board, who was now converted to Zionism. On 10 December 1914 at Whitehall, Samuel offered Weizmann a Jewish homeland complete with funded developments. Ecstatic, Weizmann returned to Westminster to arrange a meeting with Balfour, who was also on the War Council. He had first met the Conservatives in 1906, but after being moved to tears at 12 Carlton Gardens, on 12 December 1914, Balfour told Weizmann "it is a great cause and I understand it."{{citation needed|date=February 2018}} Weizmann had another meeting in Paris with [[Baron Edmond Rothschild]] before a crucial discussion with Chancellor of the Exchequer Lloyd George, on 15 January 1915.{{citation needed|date=February 2018}} Whilst some of the leading members of Britain's Jewish community regarded Weizmann's program with distaste, ''[[The Future of Palestine]]'', also known as the ''Samuel Memorandum'', was a watershed moment in the Great War and [[annexation]] of Palestine.{{citation needed|date=February 2018}}

Weizmann consulted several times with Samuel on the homeland policy during 1915, but [[H. H. Asquith]], then Prime Minister, would be dead set against upsetting the balance of power on the Middle East. Attitudes were changing to "dithyrambic"{{clarify|date=February 2018}} opposition; but in the Cabinet, to the Samuel Memorandum, it remained implacably opposed with the exception of Chancellor Lloyd George. [[Edwin Montagu]], for example, Samuel's cousin was strenuously opposed. Weizmann did not attend the meeting of Jewry's ruling [[Conjoint Committee]] when it met the Zionist leadership on 14 April 1915.<ref>Schneer, p. 149</ref> Yehiel Tschlenow had travelled from [[Berlin]] to speak at the congress. He envisioned a Jewish Community worldwide so that integration was complementary with amelioration{{Citation needed|date=October 2020}}. Zionists however had one goal only, the creation of their own state with British help.

In 1915, Weizmann also began working with [[Sir Mark Sykes]], who was looking for a member of the Jewish community for a delicate mission. He met the Armenian lawyer, [[James Aratoon Malcolm|James Malcolm]], who already knew Sykes, and British intelligence, who were tired of the oppositional politics of [[Moses Gaster]]. "Dr Weizmann&nbsp;... asked when he could meet Sir Mark Sykes&nbsp;... Sir Mark fixed the appointment for the very next day, which was a Sunday."<ref>James Malcolm, Origins of the Balfour Declaration: Dr Weizmann's Contribution, Oxford, St Anthony's, MEC, J&ME, LSOC/2</ref> They finally met on 28 January 1917, "Dr Weizmann...should take the leading part in the negotiations", was Sykes response.<ref>Malcolm to Sykes, 3 February 1917, Hull University Sykes Papers, DDSY/2; Schneer, p. 195</ref> Weizmann was determined to replace the Chief Rabbi as Jewish leader of Zionism.<ref>Schneer, p. 196</ref> He had the "matter in hand" when he met Sokolow and Malcolm at Thatched House on Monday 5 February 1917. Moses Gaster was very reluctant to step aside. Weizmann had a considerable following, yet was not involved in the discussions with [[François Georges-Picot]] at the French embassy: a British Protectorate, he knew would not require French agreement. Furthermore, [[James Armand de Rothschild|James de Rothschild]] proved a friend and guardian of the nascent state questioning Sykes' motivations as their dealings on Palestine were still secretive. Sokolow, Weizmann's diplomatic representative, cuttingly remarked to Picot underlining the irrelevance of the [[Triple Entente]] to French Jewry, but on 7 February 1917, the British government recognized the Zionist leader and agreed to expedite the claim. Weizmann was characteristically wishing to reward his Jewish friends for loyalty and service. News of the [[February Revolution]] (also known as the Kerensky Revolution) in Russia shattered the illusion for World Jewry. Unity for British Jewry was achieved by the Manchester Zionists. "Thus not for the first time in history, there is a community alike of interest and of sentiment between the British State and Jewish people."<ref>Sacher, Zionist Portraits, p. 109{{incomplete short citation|date=March 2023}}</ref> The Manchester Zionists published a pamphlet ''Palestine'' on 26 January 1917, which did not reflect British policy, but already Sykes looked to Weizmann's leadership when they met on 20 March 1917.<ref>Wilson, Scott's Diaries, pp. 271-272</ref>

On 6 February 1917 a meeting was held at [[Moses Gaster|Dr Moses Gaster]]'s house with Weizmann to discuss the results of the Picot convention in Paris. Sokolow and Weizmann pressed on with seizing leadership from Gaster; they had official recognition from the British government. At 6 Buckingham Gate on 10 February 1917 another was held, in a series of winter meetings in London. The older generation of Greenberg, [[Joseph Cowen]] and Gaster were stepping down or being passed over. "...those friends ... in close cooperation all these years", he suggested should become the EZF Council<ref>English Zionist Freedom</ref>- Manchester's Sieff, Sacher and Marks, and London's [[Leon Simon (Zionist)|Leon Simon]] and Samuel Tolkowsky. While the war was raging in the outside world, the Zionists prepared for an even bigger fight for the survival of their homeland. Weizmann issued a statement on 11 February 1917, and on the following day, they received news of the [[Alexander Kerensky|Kerensky]] take over in Petrograd. Tsarist Russia had been very anti-Semitic but incongruously this made the British government even more determined to help the Jews.<ref>Schneer, pp. 202-203</ref> [[Nahum Sokolow]] acted as Weizmann's eyes and ears in Paris on a diplomatic mission; an Entente under the [[Ottoman Empire]] was unsettling. The Triple Entente of Arab-Armenian-Zionist was fantastic to Weizmann, leaving him cold and unenthusiastic. Nonetheless, the delegation left for Paris on 31 March 1917.{{citation needed|date=February 2018}} One purpose of the Alliance was to strengthen the hand of Zionism in the United States.
[[File:Vera & Chaim Weizmann, Herbert Samuel, Lloyd George, Ethel Snowden, Philip Snowden.jpeg|thumb|upright=1.4|[[Vera Weizmann]], Chaim Weizmann, [[Herbert Samuel]], [[Lloyd George]], [[Ethel Snowden]], [[Philip Snowden]]]]
Weizmann's relations with Balfour were intellectual and academic. He was genuinely overjoyed to convince the former Prime Minister in April 1917. Just after the U.S. President, [[Woodrow Wilson]], had left, the following morning, Lloyd George invited Weizmann to breakfast at which he promised Jewish support for Britain as the Jews "might be able to render more assistance than the Arabs."<ref>MEC, Sykes Papers, note of a conference at 10 Downing Street on 3 April 1917</ref> They discussed "International Control", the Russian Revolution and US involvement in the future of the Palestine Problem.<ref>Wilson, Scott's Diaries, pp. 273–275</ref> The complexity of Arab ''desiderata'' – "facilities of colonization, communal autonomy, rights of language and establishment of a Jewish chartered company".<ref>Sokolow to Weizmann, 4 April 1917, CZA, Sokolow Papers</ref> This was followed by a meeting with [[Edward Carson|Sir Edward Carson]] and the Conservatives (18 April) and another at Downing Street on 20 April. With the help of George's private secretary [[Philip Kerr, 11th Marquess of Lothian|Philip Kerr]] the issue was moved up "the Agenda" to War Cabinet as a matter of urgency.<ref>Wilson, Scott, p. 306</ref>

On 16 May 1917 the President of the Board of Deputies David Lindo Alexander QC co-signed a statement in the ''Times'' attacking Zionism and asserting that the Jewish Community in Britain was opposed to it. At the next meeting of the Board, on 15 June 1917, a motion of censure was proposed against the President, who said he would treat the motion as one of no confidence. When it was passed, he resigned. Although subsequent analysis has shown that the success of the motion possibly had more to do with a feeling on the part of Deputies that Lindo Alexander had failed to consult them than with a massive conversion on their part to the Zionist cause, nevertheless it had great significance outside the community.<ref>Cohen, Stuart (1977) "The Conquest of a community? The Zionists and the Board of Deputies in 1917", Jewish Journal of Sociology, pp. 157-184</ref> Within days of the resolution the Foreign Office sent a note to [[Walter Rothschild, 2nd Baron Rothschild|Lord Rothschild]] and to Weizmann asking them to submit their proposals for a Jewish homeland in Palestine. The way had been opened to the Balfour Declaration issued in the following November.

==Political career==
On 31 October 1917, Chaim Weizmann became president of the [[Zionist Federation of Great Britain and Ireland|British Zionist Federation]]; he worked with Arthur Balfour to obtain the [[Balfour Declaration]].<ref>Friedman, Isaiah (1973). ''The Question of Palestine: British-Jewish-Arab Relations, 1914–1918''. Transaction Publishers. {{ISBN|978-1-4128-3868-9}}. p. 247</ref>
{{blockquote|His Majesty's government view would favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, ...to use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country, 2 November 1917.}}

A founder of so-called [[Synthetic Zionism]], Weizmann supported grass-roots colonization efforts as well as high-level diplomatic activity. He was generally associated with the centrist [[General Zionists]] and later sided with neither [[Labour Zionism]] on the left nor [[Revisionist Zionism]] on the right. In 1917, he expressed his view of [[Zionism]] in the following words,
{{blockquote|We have [the Jewish people] never based the Zionist movement on Jewish suffering in Russia or in any other land. These suffering have never been the mainspring of Zionism. The foundation of Zionism was, and continues to be to this day, the yearning of the Jewish people for its homeland, for a national centre and a national life.{{citation needed|date=February 2018}}}}

Weizmann's personality became an issue but Weizmann had an international profile unlike his colleagues or any other British Zionist. He was President of EZF Executive Council. He was also criticized by Harry Cohen. A London delegate raised a censure motion: that Weizmann refused to condemn the regiment. In August 1917, Weizmann quit both EZF and ZPC which he had founded with his friends. Leon Simon asked Weizmann not to "give up the struggle". At the meeting on 4 September 1917, he faced some fanatical opposition. But letters of support "sobering down"<ref>Weizmann to Scott, 13 September 1917, in Stein, Letters, no. 501, 7510{{incomplete short citation|date=March 2023}}</ref> opposition, and a letter from his old friend Ginzberg "a great number of people regard you as something of a symbol of Zionism".<ref>Ginzberg to Weizmann, 5 September 1917, OUNBL, Stein Papers{{incomplete short citation|date=March 2023}}; Schneer, p. 318</ref>

Zionists linked Sokolow and Weizmann to Sykes. Sacher tried to get the Foreign Secretary to redraft a statement rejecting Zionism. The irony was not lost accusing the government of anti-semitism. [[Edwin Montagu]] opposed it, but [[Herbert Samuel]] and [[David Lloyd George]] favoured Zionism. Montagu did not regard Palestine as a "fit place for them to live". Montagu believed that it would let down assimilationists and the ideals of British Liberalism. The Memorandum was not supposed to accentuate the prejudice of mentioning 'home of the Jewish people'. Weizmann was a key holder at the Ministry of Supply by late 1917. By 1918 Weizmann was accused of combating the idea of a separate peace with Ottoman Empire. He considered such a peace at odds with Zionist interests. He was even accused of "possibly prolonging the war".<ref>[[Schneer, Jonathan]], ''The Balfour Declaration'', 2010, p. 273</ref>

At the War Cabinet meeting of 4 October, chaired by Lloyd George and with Balfour present, [[George Curzon, 1st Marquess Curzon of Kedleston|Lord Curzon]] also opposed this "barren and desolate" place as a home for Jews.{{citation needed|date=February 2018}} In a third memo Montagu labelled Weizmann a "religious fanatic".{{citation needed|date=February 2018}} Montagu believed in assimilation and saw his principles being swept from under by the new policy stance. Montagu, a [[British Jews|British Jew]], had learnt debating skills as India Secretary, and Liberalism from Asquith, who also opposed Zionism.

[[File:ירושלים - פרופסור ויצמן עם דגל הגדוד העברי-JNF029623.jpeg|thumb|upright=1.3|Weizmann holding a standard of the [[Jewish Legion]], 1918]]
All the memos from Zionists, non-Zionists, and Curzon were all-in by a third meeting convened on Wednesday, 31 October 1917. The War Cabinet had dealt an "irreparable blow to Jewish Britons", wrote Montagu. Curzon's memo was mainly concerned by the non-Jews in Palestine to secure their civil rights.<ref>Vital, ''Zionism'', p. 291, n50.; Schneer, p. 342</ref> Worldwide there were 12 million Jews, and about {{gaps|365|000}} in Palestine by 1932. Cabinet ministers were worried about Germany playing the Zionist card. If the Germans were in control, it would hasten support for Ottoman Empire, and collapse of Kerensky's government. Curzon went on towards an advanced Imperial view: that since most Jews had Zionist views, it was as well to support these majority voices. "If we could make a declaration favourable to such an ideal we should be able to carry on extremely useful propaganda."<ref>31 October 1917, 137(5–6), NA, Cab21/58.; Schneer, p. 343</ref> Weizmann "was absolutely loyal to Great Britain".<ref>Sacher, Zionist Portraits, p. 37{{incomplete short citation|date=March 2023}}</ref> The Zionists had been approached by the Germans, Weizmann told [[William Ormsby-Gore, 4th Baron Harlech|William Ormsby-Gore]], but the British miscalculated the effects of immigration to Palestine and over-estimated German control over the Ottoman Empire. The Ottomans were in no position to prevent movement. Sykes reported the Declaration to Weizmann with elation all round: he repeated "mazel tov" over and over. The Entente had fulfilled its commitment to both Sharif Husein and Chaim Weizmann.<ref>Schneer, p. 346</ref>

[[File:Weizmann and feisal 1918.jpg|thumb|upright=1.3|Weizmann (left) with Prince Faisal, later [[Faisal I of Iraq]] in Syria, 1918]]
Sykes stressed the Entente: "We are pledged to Zionism, Armenianism liberation, and Arabian independence".{{citation needed|date=February 2018}} On 2 December, Zionists celebrated the Declaration at the Opera House; the news of the [[October Revolution|Bolshevik Revolution]], and withdrawal of Russian troops from the frontier war with Ottoman Empire, raised the pressure from Constantinople. On 11 December, Turkish armies were swept aside when [[Edmund Allenby, 1st Viscount Allenby|Edmund Allenby]]'s troops entered Jerusalem. On 9 January 1918, all Turkish troops withdrew from the Hejaz for a bribe of $2&nbsp;million to help pay Ottoman Empire's debts. Weizmann had seen peace with Ottoman Empire out of the question in July 1917. Lloyd George wanted a separate peace with Ottoman Empire to guarantee relations in the region secure. Weizmann had managed to gain the support of International Jewry in Britain, France and Italy.<ref>Schneer, p. 366</ref> Schneer postulates that the British government desperate for any wartime advantage were prepared to offer any support among philo-Semites.<ref>Schneer, p.&nbsp;367</ref> It was to Weizmann a priority. Weizmann considered that the issuance of the Balfour Declaration was the greatest single achievement of the pre-1948 Zionists. He believed that the Balfour Declaration and the legislation that followed it, such as the (3 June 1922) Churchill White Paper and the [[League of Nations]] Mandate for Palestine all represented an astonishing accomplishment for the Zionist movement.{{citation needed|date=February 2018}}

[[File:ירושלים - כנס רבנים-JNF017728.jpeg|thumb|upright=1.3|Weizmann in Jerusalem, 1920 ([[Herbert Samuel]] to his right)]]
On 3 January 1919, Weizmann met [[Hashemite]] [[Faisal I of Iraq|Prince Faisal]] to sign the [[Faisal-Weizmann Agreement]] attempting to establish the legitimate existence of the state of Israel.<ref>[[James Barr (author)|James Barr]], ''A Line in the Sand'', p. 70 – Barr argues that Feisal was bribed by the British with {{gaps|£150|000}} pa to sustain the Caliphate.</ref> At the end of the month, the [[Paris Peace Conference, 1919|Paris Peace Conference]] decided that the Arab provinces of the Ottoman Empire should be wholly separated and the newly conceived mandate-system applied to them.<ref>[http://www.law.fsu.edu/library/collection/LimitsinSeas/IBS094.pdf International Boundary Study, Jordan – Syria Boundary, No. 94 – 30 December 1969, p. 10] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090327062139/http://www.law.fsu.edu/library/collection/LimitsinSeas/IBS094.pdf |date=27 March 2009 }} US Department of State</ref> Weizmann stated at the conference that the Zionist objective was to "establish such a society in Palestine that Palestine shall be as Jewish as England is English, or America American."<ref>Cleveland, William L. A History of the Modern Middle East. Boulder, CO: Westview, 2004. Print. p. 228</ref> Shortly thereafter, both men made their statements to the conference.

After 1920, he assumed leadership in the [[World Zionist Organization]], creating local branches in Berlin,<ref>Cleveland, William L. A History of the Modern Middle East. Boulder, CO: Westview, 2004. Print. p. 225</ref> and serving twice (1920–31, 1935–46) as president of the World Zionist Organization. Unrest amongst Arab antagonism to a Jewish presence in Palestine increased, erupting into riots. Weizmann remained loyal to Britain, tried to shift the blame onto dark forces. The French were commonly blamed for discontent, as scapegoats for Imperial liberalism. Zionists began to believe racism existed within the administration, which remained inadequately policed.{{citation needed|date=February 2018}}

In 1921, Weizmann went along with [[Albert Einstein]] for a fundraiser to establish the [[Hebrew University]] in [[Jerusalem]] and support the [[Technion – Israel Institute of Technology]]. At this time, simmering differences over competing European and American visions of Zionism, and its funding of development versus political activities, caused Weizmann to clash with [[Louis Brandeis]].<ref>Ben Halpern, A Clash of Heroes: Brandeis, Weizmann, and American Zionism (Studies in Jewish History) [[Oxford University Press]], 1987</ref> In 1921 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.<ref>Shamir, Ronen (2013) Current Flow: The Electrification of Palestine. Stanford: Stanford University Press.</ref>

During the war years, Brandeis headed the precursor of the [[Zionist Organization of America]], leading fund-raising for Jews trapped in Europe and Palestine.<ref>Michael Brown, [https://books.google.com/books?id=UEQggnBIUUgC&q=American+Provisional+Executive+Committee+for+General+Zionist+Affairs ''The Israeli-American connection: its roots in the yishuv, 1914–1945''] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180216084040/https://books.google.com/books?id=UEQggnBIUUgC&printsec=frontcover&hl=en&source=gbs_v2_summary_r&cad=0 |date=16 February 2018 }}, p. 26</ref> In early October 1914, the {{USS|North Carolina|ACR-12|6}} arrived in [[Jaffa Harbor]] with money and supplies provided by [[Jacob Schiff]], the [[American Jewish Committee]], and the Provisional Executive Committee for General Zionist Affairs, then acting for the WZO, which had been rendered impotent by the war. Although Weizmann retained Zionist leadership, the clash led to a departure from Louis Brandeis's movement. By 1929, there were about {{gaps|18|000}} members remaining in the ZOA, a massive decline from the high of {{gaps|200|000}} reached during the peak Brandeis years.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/longterm/books/chap1/fallenpillars.htm|title=Chapter 1 from ''Fallen Pillars: U.S. Policy towards Palestine and Israel since 1945''|author=[[Donald Neff]]|newspaper=[[The Washington Post]]|date=1995|access-date=11 March 2023|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171117152847/http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/longterm/books/chap1/fallenpillars.htm|archive-date=17 November 2017}}</ref> In summer 1930, these two factions and visions of Zionism, would come to a compromise largely on Brandeis's terms, with a restructured leadership for the ZOA.<ref>[http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,739959,00.html Religion: Zionist Chiefs] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110130104029/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,739959,00.html |date=30 January 2011 }}, ''[[Time (magazine)|Time]]'', 28 July 1930</ref> An American view is that Weizmann persuaded the British cabinet to support Zionism by presenting the benefits of having a presence in Palestine in preference to the French. Imperial interests on the [[Suez Canal]] as well as sympathy after [[the Holocaust]] were important factors for British support.<ref>Cleveland, William L., ''A History of the Modern Middle East''. Boulder, Colorado: Westview, 2004. Print. p. 226</ref> Weizmann wrote in 1914:<ref>{{Cite web |last=Mandhai |first=Shafik |date=2 November 2017 |title=What Balfour means to Jewish critics of Israel |url=https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/11/2/what-balfour-means-to-jewish-critics-of-israel |access-date=2024-04-16 |website=[[Al Jazeera]] |language=en}}</ref><blockquote>Should Palestine fall within the British sphere of influence, and should Britain encourage a Jewish settlement there, as a British dependency, we could have in 20 to 30 years a million Jews out there ... they would ... form a very effective guard for the Suez Canal.</blockquote>

===Jewish immigration to Palestine===
[[File:Chaim Arlosoroff.jpg|thumb|upright=1.4|Chaim Weizmann (sitting, second from left) at a meeting with Arab leaders at the [[King David Hotel]], Jerusalem, 1933. Also pictured are [[Haim Arlosoroff]] (sitting, center), [[Moshe Shertok]] (Sharett) (standing, right), and [[Yitzhak Ben-Zvi]] (standing, to Shertok's right).]]

Jewish immigration was consciously limited by the British administration. Weizmann agreed with the policy but was afraid of the rise of the Nazis. From 1933, there were year-on-year leaps in mass immigration by 50%. Prime Minister [[Ramsay MacDonald]]'s attempted reassurance on economic grounds in a [[white paper]] did little to stabilize Arab-Israeli relations.<ref>J. Barr, ''A Line in the Sand'', p. 166</ref> In 1936 and early 1937, Weizmann addressed the [[Peel Commission]] (set up by the returning Conservative Prime Minister [[Stanley Baldwin]]), whose job it was to consider the working of the [[Mandatory Palestine|British Mandate of Palestine]].<ref>{{Cite news|last=Kessler|first=Oren|author-link=Oren Kessler|date=31 March 2020|title='A Clean Cut' for Palestine: The Peel Commission Reexamined|work=Fathom|url=https://fathomjournal.org/mandate100-a-clean-cut-for-palestine-the-peel-commission-reexamined/|access-date=29 November 2021}}</ref> He 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:
<blockquote>I think it was in Bombay recently, that there had been trouble and the Moslems had been flogged. I am not advocating flogging, but what is the difference between a Moslem in Palestine and a Moslem in Bombay? There they flog them, and here they save their faces. This, interpreted in terms of Moslem mentality, means: "The British are weak; we shall succeed if we make ourselves sufficiently unpleasant. We shall succeed in throwing the Jews into the Mediterranean."<ref>[[Ian Lustick|Ian S Lustick]] and Matthew Berkman,'Zionist Theories of Peace in the Pre-State Era:Legacies of Dissimulation and Israel’s Arab Minority,' in Nadim N. Rouhana, Sahar S. Huneidi (eds.), [https://books.google.com/books?id=F0P4DQAAQBAJ&pg=PA49 ''Israel and its Palestinian Citizens: Ethnic Privileges in the Jewish State,''] [[Cambridge University Press]], 2017 {{isbn|978-1-107-04483-8}} pp. 39-72, pp. 49-50.</ref></blockquote>

On 25 November 1936, testifying before the Peel Commission, Weizmann said that there were in Europe {{gaps|6|000|000}} Jews "for whom the world is divided into places where they cannot live and places where they cannot enter."<ref name="Weizmann1983p102"/> The Commission published a report that, for the first time, recommended partition, but the proposal was declared unworkable and formally rejected by the government. The two main Jewish leaders, Weizmann and [[David Ben-Gurion]] had convinced the [[World Zionist Congress|Zionist Congress]] to approve equivocally the Peel recommendations as a basis for more negotiation.<ref name="Morris2004p11"/><ref name="Louis2006p391"/> This was the first official mention and declaration of a Zionist vision opting for a possible State with a majority of Jewish population, alongside a State with an Arab majority. The Arab leaders, headed by [[Haj Amin al-Husseini]], rejected the plan.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Kessler |first=Oren |title=Palestine 1936: The Great Revolt and the Roots of the Middle East Conflict |date=2023 |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield |isbn=978-1-5381-4880-8 |location=Lanham, Maryland |pages=101–102}}</ref>

Weizmann made very clear in his autobiography that the failure of the international Zionist movement (between the wars) 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. A deal on partition was first formally mentioned in 1936 but not finally implemented until 1948. Again, Weizmann blamed the Zionist movement for not being adequate during the best years of the British Mandate.{{citation needed|date=February 2018}}

Ironically, in 1936 [[Ze'ev Jabotinsky]] prepared the so-called "evacuation plan", which called for the evacuation of 1.5 million Jews from [[Poland]], the [[Baltic states]], [[Nazi Germany]], [[Hungary]] and [[Romania]] to Palestine over the span of next ten years. The plan was first proposed on 8 September 1936 in the conservative Polish newspaper ''{{ill|Czas|pl|Czas (dziennik)}}'', the day after Jabotinsky organized a conference where more details of the plan were laid out; the emigration would take 10 years and would include {{gaps|750|000}} Jews from Poland, with {{gaps|75|000}} between age of 20–39 leaving the country each year. Jabotinsky stated that his goal was to reduce Jewish population in the countries involved to levels that would make them uninterested in its further reduction.<ref>{{cite book |title=No Way Out: The Politics of Polish Jewry 1935-1939 |author=Emanuel Melzer |page=136 |publisher=Hebrew Union College Press |year=1976}}</ref>

The same year, he toured Eastern Europe, meeting with the Polish Foreign Minister, Colonel [[Józef Beck]]; the Regent of [[Hungary]], Admiral [[Miklós Horthy]]; and Prime Minister [[Gheorghe Tătărescu]] of [[Romania]] to discuss the evacuation plan. The plan gained the approval of all three governments, but caused considerable controversy within the [[Polish Jews|Jewish community of Poland]], on the grounds that it played into the hands of anti-Semites. In particular, the fact that the 'evacuation plan' had the approval of the Polish government was taken by many Polish Jews as indicating Jabotinsky had gained the endorsement of what they considered to be the wrong people.

The evacuation of [[History of the Jews in Poland|Jewish communities in Poland]], [[History of the Jews in Hungary|Hungary]] and [[History of the Jews in Romania|Romania]] was to take place over a ten-year period. However, the British government vetoed it, and the [[World Zionist Organization]]'s chairman, Chaim Weizmann, dismissed it.<ref>[http://www.thetower.org/article/jabotinskys-lost-moment-june-1940/ Jabotinsky Lost Moment June 1940]</ref>

Weizmann considered himself, not Ben-Gurion, the political heir to [[Theodor Herzl]]. Herzl's only grandchild and descendant was [[Stephen Norman]] (born Stephan Theodor Neumann, 1918–1946). Dr. [[Herzl Rosenblum|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. Norman spoke to the Zionist conference in London. Haboker reported, "Something similar happened at the Zionist conference in London. The chairman suddenly announced to the meeting that in the hall there was Herzl's grandson who wanted to say a few words. The introduction was made in an absolutely dry and official way. It was felt that the chairman looked for—and found—some stylistic formula which would satisfy the visitor without appearing too cordial to anybody among the audience. In spite of that there was a great thrill in the hall when Norman mounted on the platform of the presidium. At that moment, Dr. Weizmann turned his back on the speaker and remained in this bodily and mental attitude until the guest had finished his speech."<ref>Haboker 26 October 1945. Document amongst the papers of Stephen Norman at the Central Zionist Archives in Jerusalem</ref> The 1945 article went on to note that Norman was snubbed by Weizmann and by some in Israel during his visit because of ego, jealousy, vanity and their own personal ambitions. Brodetsky was Chaim Weizmann's principal ally and supporter in Britain. Weizmann secured for Norman a desirable but minor position with the British Economic and Scientific Mission in Washington, D.C.

===Second World War===
On 29 August 1939, Weizmann sent a letter to [[Neville Chamberlain]], stating in part: "I wish to confirm in the most explicit manner the declarations which I and my colleagues have made during the last month and especially in the last week: that the Jews stand by Great Britain and will fight on the side of the democracies."<ref>{{cite news |title=Chamberlain Welcomes Agency's War Aid; Says It Will Be "kept in Mind" |url=https://www.jta.org/1939/09/06/archive/chamberlain-welcomes-agencys-war-aid-says-it-will-be-kept-in-mind |access-date=1 August 2020 |work=Jewish Telegraphic Agency |date=6 September 1939}}</ref> The letter gave rise to a [[conspiracy theory]], promoted in [[Nazi propaganda]], that he had made a [[Jewish war conspiracy theory|"Jewish declaration of war"]] against Germany.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Berkowitz |first1=Michael |title=The Crime of My Very Existence: Nazism and the Myth of Jewish Criminality |date=2007 |publisher=University of California Press |isbn=978-0-520-94068-0 |pages=131–132 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0PzzDmT0JM4C&pg=PA131 |language=en}}</ref><ref name=Lang1>{{cite book |last1=Lang |first1=Berel |title=Philosophical Witnessing: The Holocaust as Presence |date=2009 |publisher=UPNE |isbn=978-1-58465-741-5 |pages=132–133 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=s5XVD4EoEkkC&pg=PA133 |language=en}}</ref>

[[File:A nurse with child evacuees from Plymouth in the garden of the Chaim Weizmann Home at Tapley Park, Instow, North Devon, October 1942. TR248.jpg|thumb|A nurse with [[Evacuations of civilians in Britain during World War II|child evacuees from Plymouth]] in the garden of Weizmann's home at Tapley Park in the English village of [[Instow]], north [[Devon]], 1942]]
At the outbreak of war in Europe in 1939, 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. He was frequently asked to advise the cabinet and also brief the Prime Minister. Weizmann's efforts to integrate Jews from Palestine in the war against Germany resulted in the creation of the [[Jewish Brigade]] of the British Army which fought mainly in the Italian front.{{citation needed|date=February 2018}} After the war, he grew embittered by the rise of violence in Palestine and by the terrorist tendencies amongst followers of the Revisionist fraction. His influence within the Zionist movement decreased, yet he remained overwhelmingly influential outside of Mandate Palestine.{{citation needed|date=February 2018}}

In 1942, Weizmann was invited by President [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]] to work on the problem of synthetic rubber. Weizmann proposed to produce butyl alcohol from maize, then convert it to butylene and further to butadiene, which is a basis for rubber. According to his memoirs, these proposals were barred by the oil companies.<ref>Chaim Weizmann, ''Trial and Error'', Harper & Brothers, New York 1949, p. 426 ff.{{cite web |url=https://www.cafetelaviv.de/2015/07/10/chaim-weizmann-mais-gummi-produktion/ |title=Chaim Weizmann : Mais zur Gummiproduktion &#124; Nahost – Blog |access-date=10 July 2015 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150711013625/http://www.transatlantikblog.de/2015/07/10/chaim-weizmann-mais-gummi-produktion/ |archive-date=11 July 2015}}</ref>

===The Holocaust===
In 1939, a conference was established at [[St James's Palace]] when the government drew up the May 1939 White Paper which severely curtailed any spending in the Jewish Home Land. Yishuv was put back to the lowest priority. At the outbreak of war the [[Jewish Agency for Israel|Jewish Agency]] pledged its support for the British war effort against Nazi Germany. They raised the Jewish Brigade into the British Army, which took years to come to fruition. It authenticated the news of the Holocaust reaching the allies.{{citation needed|date=February 2018}}

In May 1942, the Zionists met at [[Biltmore Hotel]] in New York, US; a [[Biltmore Conference| convention]] at which Weizmann pressed for a policy of unrestricted immigration into Palestine. A Jewish Commonwealth needed to be established, and latterly Churchill revived his backing for this project.{{citation needed|date=February 2018}}

Weizmann met Churchill on 4 November 1944 to urgently discuss the future of Palestine. Churchill agreed that Partition was preferable for Israel over his White Paper. He also agreed that Israel should annex the [[Negev desert]], where no one was living. However, when [[Lord Moyne]], the British Governor of Palestine, had met Churchill a few days earlier, he was surprised that Churchill had changed his views in two years. On 6 November, Moyne was assassinated for his trenchant views on immigration; the immigration question was put on hold.{{citation needed|date=February 2018}}

In February 1943, the British government also rejected a plan to pay $3.5&nbsp;million and just $50 per head to allow {{gaps|70|000}}, mostly Romanian, Jews to be protected and evacuated that Weizmann had suggested to the Americans. In May 1944, the British detained [[Joel Brand]], a Jewish activist from Budapest, who wanted to evacuate 1 million Jews from Hungary on {{gaps|10|000}} trucks, with tea, coffee, cocoa, and soap. In July 1944, Weizmann pleaded on Brand's behalf but to no avail. [[Rezső Kasztner]]<ref>known as the real leader of the Hungarian Jews, see: Encyclopaedia of the Holocaust, vol.3, p.</ref> took over the direct negotiations with [[Adolf Eichmann]] to release migrants, but they came to nothing.<ref>Dictionary of the Holocaust: biog, geog, and terminology, (eds.) Eric Joseph Epstein and [[Philip Rosen]], Greenwood Press, Westport, CT, 1997</ref> Weizmann also promoted a plan to bomb the death camps, but the British claimed that this was too risky, dangerous and unfeasible, due to technical difficulties.<ref>''Encyclopaedia of the Holocaust'', p. 1642</ref> On 20 September 1945, Weizmann presented the first official documents to the British, USA, France, and Soviets, for the restitution of property, and indemnification. He demanded that all heirless Jewish property should be handed over as part of the reparations for the rehabilitation of Nazi victims.

In his presidential statement at the last Zionist congress that he attended at Basel on 9 December 1946 he said: "Massada, for all its heroism, was a disaster in our history; It is not our purpose or our right to plunge to destruction in order to bequeath a legend of martyrdom to posterity; Zionism was to mark the end of our glorious deaths and the beginning of a new path leading to life."<ref>''The Letters and Papers of Chaim Weizmann'', Series B. Papers Volume II December 1931 – April 1952, Paper 87, pp. 636–37, Yad Chaim Weizmann (1984), Library of Congress Catalog No. 82-17442</ref>

==First president of Israel==
[[File:Ben Gurion International Airport (997008136017305171).jpg|thumb|Weizmann in the airport in Israel, 1949]]
[[File:Chaim Weizmann - Seyfullah Esin - Moshe Sharett 1950.jpg|thumb|Weizmann (left) with first Turkish ambassador to Israel, Seyfullah Esin (c), and Foreign Minister [[Moshe Sharett]], 1950]]
Two days after the proclamation of the State of Israel, Weizmann succeeded Ben-Gurion as chairman of the Provisional State Council, a collective presidency that held office until Israel's first parliamentary election, in [[1949 Israeli legislative election|February 1949]].

On 2 July 1948, a new [[kibbutz]] was founded facing the Golan Heights (Syrian) overlooking the Jordan River, only 5 miles from Syrian territory. Their forces had already seized Kibbutz ''[[Mishmar HaYarden (moshava)|Mishmar Ha-Yarden]]''. The new kibbutz was named (President's Village) ''[[Kfar HaNassi|Kfar Ha-Nasi]]''.<ref>Gilbert, ''History of Israel'', p. 210</ref>

When the first [[Knesset]] met in 1949, Weizmann was nominated as Mapai's candidate for president. The Revisionist Party put forward [[Joseph Klausner|Prof. Joseph Klausner]].<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Wechsler |first=Shoham |date=2023-05-03 |title='He is living Israeli flag': The Right and the Presidency in Israel under Chaim Weizmann, 1948–1952 |journal=Middle Eastern Studies |volume=60 |issue=2 |pages=308–319 |doi=10.1080/00263206.2023.2186858 |s2cid=258497805 |issn=0026-3206|doi-access=free }}</ref> Weizmann was elected president by the Knesset on 17 February 1949.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://president.gov.il/English/The_Presidency_In_Israel/Presidents_Of_Israel/Pages/ChaimWeizmann.aspx|title=Chaim Weizmann – First President of the State of Israel|work=President of the State of Israel website|access-date=16 February 2018}}</ref> On 24 February 1949, Weizmann as president entrusted Ben-Gurion with forming a government. A Coalition was made up of 46 [[Mapai]], 2 Arab Democratic List of [[Nazareth]], 16 of United Religious Front, 5 of Progressive Party, 4 of Sephardi List. Mapam was officially a socialist party with Mapai, but was anti-religious and so remained outside the coalition.<ref>Gilbert, pp. 252-253</ref> On 2 November 1949, the anniversary of the Balfour Declaration, the Daniel Sieff Institute, much enlarged and rebuilt, was renamed the [[Weizmann Institute of Science]]. The institute was a global success, attracting scientists from all over the Diaspora. In 1949 there were 20 researchers; twenty years later there were 400, and 500 students.<ref>Gilbert, pp. 267–268</ref> 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]].

President Weizmann lived at [[Rehovot]], where he regularly received the Prime Minister [[David Ben-Gurion]] into his garden. He was denied any actualisation of the political role he had hoped for by the Left,<ref>Rose, p. 445</ref><ref>Wechsler, S. (2024). ‘Retirement home’ or ‘symbol of purity and nobility’? David Ben-Gurion’s changing perception of the Israeli presidency. Israel Affairs, 1–11. https://doi.org/10.1080/13537121.2024.2342131
</ref> and had to be consoled with the Weizmann Institute's successes.

When Weizmann died on 9 November 1952, he was buried at Rehovot. He was acknowledged as a patriot long before Israel had even begun to exist.<ref>Crossman, p. 41</ref> "The greatest Jewish emissary to the Gentile world..." was one academic verdict.<ref>Wiesgal & Carmichael, p. 2{{incomplete short citation|date=March 2023}}</ref>
<gallery mode="packed" heights="200px">
Chaim Weizmann funeral, Rehovot (997008136197505171).jpg|Weizmann's funeral in 1952
Stamp of Israel - President Dr. Weizmann - 110mil.jpg|Weizmann memorial stamp issued in December 1952
</gallery>

==Published works==
* {{cite book|first=Chaim|last=Weizmann|title=What is Zionism|url=https://archive.org/details/cu31924028583320|place=London|date=1918|ref=none}}
* {{cite book|first=Chaim|last=Weizmann|title=Trial and Error: The Autobiography of Chaim Weizmann|publisher=Jewish Publication Society of America|year=1949|author-mask=1|ref=none}}
* {{cite book|first=Chaim|last=Weizmann|title=Autobiography: Chaim Weizmann|place=London|publisher=Hamilton Ltd|date=1949|author-mask=1|ref=none}}
* {{cite journal|first=Chaim|last=Weizmann|title=Palestine's role in the solution of the Jewish Problem|journal=[[Foreign Affairs]]|date=January 1942|volume=20|issue=2|pages=324–338|doi= 10.2307/20029153|jstor=20029153|author-mask=1|ref=none}}
* {{Cite book|title=Living History: a Memoir|last=Herzog|first=Chaim|publisher=Plunkett Lake Press|year=1996|ref=none}} {{ASIN|B013FPVJ42}}

==References==
{{reflist|30em|refs=
<ref name="Weizmann1983p102">{{cite book|author=Chaim Weizmann|title=The Letters and Papers of Chaim Weizmann: series B|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PsabNtx33VMC&pg=PA102|date=1 January 1983|publisher=Transaction Publishers|isbn=978-0-87855-297-9|pages=102–|quote=On 25 November 1936, testifying before the Peel Commission, Weizmann said that there are in Europe {{gaps|6|000|000}} Jews ... "for whom the world is divided into places where they cannot live and places where they cannot enter."|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160430044813/https://books.google.com/books?id=PsabNtx33VMC&pg=PA102|archive-date=30 April 2016}}</ref>

<ref name="Weizmann1983">{{cite book|author=Chaïm Weizmann|title=The Letters and Papers of Chaim Weizmann: August 1898 – July 1931|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Pg3laOc4okEC&pg=PA301|access-date=27 January 2013|year=1983|publisher=Transaction Publishers|isbn=978-0-87855-279-5|page=301|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160521051602/https://books.google.com/books?id=Pg3laOc4okEC&pg=PA301|archive-date=21 May 2016}}</ref>

<ref name="Louis2006p391">{{cite book|author=William Roger Louis|title=Ends of British Imperialism: The Scramble for Empire, Suez, and Decolonization|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NQnpQNKeKKAC|access-date=25 July 2013|year=2006|publisher=I.B.Tauris|isbn=978-1-84511-347-6|page=391|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140103044644/http://books.google.com/books?id=NQnpQNKeKKAC|archive-date=3 January 2014}}</ref>

<ref name="Morris2004p11">{{cite book|author=Benny Morris|title=The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=uM_kFX6edX8C&pg=PA11|access-date=25 July 2013|year=2004|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-00967-6|pages=11, 48, 49|quote=p. 11: 'while the Zionist movement, after much agonising, accepted the principle of partition and the proposals as a basis for negotiation'; p. 49: 'In the end, after bitter debate, the Congress equivocally approved –by a vote of 299 to 160 – the Peel recommendations as a basis for further negotiation.'|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150319135626/http://books.google.com/books?id=uM_kFX6edX8C&pg=PA11|archive-date=19 March 2015}}</ref>
}}

{{notelist}}

==Further reading==
* {{cite book|first=Isaiah|last=Berlin|title=Chaim Weizmann|publisher=Second Herbert Samuel Lecture|place=London|date=1958}}
* {{cite book|first=J.|last= Berlin|series= private info. |title=Personal Impressions|date=1981}}
* {{cite book|first=Richard|last= Crossman|title= A Nation Reborn|url=https://archive.org/details/nationrebornisra0000cros|url-access=registration|place=London|date=1960}}
* {{cite book|first=Mrs Edgar|last=Dugdale|title=The Balfour Declaration: Origins and Background|place=London|date=1940}}
* {{cite book|first=Martin|last=Gilbert|title=Exile and Return: The Emergence of Jewish Statehood|place=London|date=1978}}
* {{cite book|first= Sir Martin|last= Gilbert|title= History of Israel|publisher= Black Swan|orig-year=1998|date=2008}}
* {{cite book|first=Ben|last= Halpern|title=A Clash of Heroes: Brandeis, Weizmann, and American Zionism|place=London and New York|publisher=Oxford University Press|date=1987|isbn=0195040627}}
* {{cite book|first=Dan|last=Leon|title=Chaim Weizmann: elder statesman of Jewish Resistance|issue=no. 3 series|publisher=Jewish Library|date=1974}}
* {{cite book |first=Barnet |last=Litvinoff |title=The Essential Chaim Weizmann: The Man, the Statesman, the Scientist |publisher=Weidenfeld & Nicolson |date=1982}}
* {{cite book|first=Barnet|last=Litvinoff|title= The Letters and Papers of Chaim Weizmann|volume= 25 vols.|place=New Brunswick, New Jersey|date=1968–1984}}
* {{cite journal|first=Jehuda|last=Reinharz|title=His Majesty's Zionist Emissary: Chaim Weizmann's Mission to Gibraltar in 1917|journal=[[Journal of Contemporary History]]|volume=27|date=1992|issue=2|pages=259–277|doi=10.1177/002200949202700203|s2cid=159644752}}
* {{cite book |first=Jehuda |last=Reinharz |title=Chaim Weizmann: The Making of a Zionist Leader |publisher=Oxford University Press |date=1985 |isbn=978-0195034462}}
* {{cite book |first=Jehuda |last=Reinharz |title=Chaim Weizmann: The Making of a Statesman |publisher=Oxford University Press |date=1993 |isbn=978-0195072150}}
* {{cite book|last=Rose|first=Norman|title=Chaim Weizmann: A Biography|place=London|publisher=Elisabeth Sifton Books|date=1986|isbn=0-670-80469-X|url=https://archive.org/details/chaimweizmannbio00rose}}
* {{cite book |first=Jonathan |last=Schneer |title=The Balfour Declaration: The Origins of Arab-Israeli Conflict |publisher=Macmillan |date=2014 |isbn=978-1408809709}}
* {{cite book|first=Leonard|last=Stein|title=The Balfour Declaration|place=London|date=1961|isbn=978-1597404754}}
* {{cite journal|first=Leonard|last=Stein|title=Weizmann and England|publisher=Presidential Address to the Jewish Historical Society delivered in London, 11 November 1964|place=London|date=1964}}
* {{cite journal|first=M.|last= Verete|title=The Balfour Declaration and its makers|journal= Middle Eastern Studies|date=Jan 1970|volume= 6|pages= 48–76|doi= 10.1080/00263207008700138}}
* {{cite book|first=David|last=Vital|title=Zionism: The Crucial Phase|place=London|date=1987}}
* {{cite book|first=David|last=Vital|title=A People Apart: The Jews in Europe 1789–1939|publisher=Oxford Modern History|date=1999|ref=641–692}}
* {{cite book |title=The Political Diaries of CP Scott, 1911–1928 |editor-first=Trevor |editor-last=Wilson |date=1970}}
* {{cite book|first=Lucien|last=Wolf|editor=Cecil Roth|title=Essays in Jewish History|place=London|date=1934}}

==External links==
{{Wikiquote}}
{{Commons category}}
*[http://www.shapell.org/manuscript.aspx?169129 Historical Letters and Primary Sources from Chaim Weizmann] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120527053557/http://www.shapell.org/manuscript.aspx?169129 |date=27 May 2012 }} Shapell Manuscript Foundation
*[http://www.weizmann.ac.il Weizmann Institute of Science]
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20070511004603/http://www.weizmann.ac.il/Organic_Chemistry/weizlab.shtml The Chaim Weizmann Laboratory] on Chaim Weizmann's laboratory at the Weizmann Institute (includes info and links on Weizmann's scientific work)
*[http://www.archives.mod.gov.il/sites/English/Exhibitions/Pages/Dr-Weitzmann.aspx Dr. Weitzmann visits Tel-Aviv,Exhibition in the IDF&Defense establishment archives]
*[http://www.shapell.org/Collection/Jewish-Figures/Weizmann-Chaim Chaim Weizmann Personal Manuscripts and Letters]
* {{PM20|FID=pe/018383}}
* {{Internet Archive author |sname= Chaim Weizmann}}
{{Israelpres}}
{{Presidents of Weizmann Institute of Science}}
{{Portal bar|Biography|Israel|Politics|Chemistry}}

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