Saturday, August 31, 2024

'Chaim Weizmann: A Biography': A revealing look at the life of Israel's first president


Born in 1874 in what he himself described as “one of the darkest and most forlorn corners of the Pale of Settlement,” Chaim Weizmann rose to become the confidant of world leaders and undisputed key figure in the long, complex, diplomatic struggle that led to the founding of the State of Israel. Indeed, on the day after the nation’s birth in May 1948, Weizmann, sick in bed in New York’s Waldorf Astoria Hotel, received a telegram signed by some of the new leaders of Israel headed by David Ben-Gurion. 

“We congratulate you on the founding of the Hebrew state,” it read. “There is no one who contributed as you did to its creation.” It concluded: “We look forward to the day on which we will have the privilege of seeing you as head of state.”

That day did, indeed, arrive. Weizmann, chosen to occupy the position by the Provisional State Council two days after independence, was formally elected president by the Knesset after Israel’s first parliamentary elections in February 1949. He held the office until his death on November 9, 1952. 


And yet, such are the vagaries of history, Weizmann’s signature never appeared in the blank space allotted to it in Israel’s founding document, its Declaration of Independence. David Ben-Gurion, with whom Weizmann rarely if ever saw eye to eye, never provided an opportunity to allow it. Moreover, as authors Jehuda Reinharz and Motti Golani reveal in their magisterial volume Chaim Weizmann: A Biography, the position of president offered to and accepted by Weizmann was not at all the position he had anticipated receiving.

As the offer of the presidency arrived, two days after the independence declaration, his small circle, consisting of his wife, Vera, his secretary, Riva, and a few friends, gathered by his bedside. In the US, the term “president” means head of state with executive powers, and for a long time Weizmann assumed that this was the position he was being offered in Israel. He was not alone.

“Both in Weizmann’s hotel room,” write Reinharz and Golani, “and in the White House, the title of president, filtered through the prism of American concepts, was taken to mean that Weizmann’s post would have powers similar to those of the president of the United States.”

The misconception persisted even after Ben-Gurion officially assumed the post of prime minister in line with the British parliamentary system, making him the leader of the government and head of the executive. When the penny finally dropped and Weizmann became aware that the position of president he was being offered was bereft of executive power, he decided to resign ahead of being formally elected by the Knesset. It was only at the last minute that he decided not to send the letter of resignation that he had composed, but Reinharz and Golani reveal that a version reached the public domain, anyway. It was, they say, one with “Weizmann’s history of resignation threats he had no intention of carrying through on.” After all, they remark, Weizmann “was a man who, when thrown out the door, knew how to get back in through the window.”

Preeminent as Weizmann is in the story of Israel and Zionism, it is remarkable that he has been so largely neglected by historians and is so curiously downplayed in the accepted version of the origins of the state. Prior to this biography, perhaps the fullest record of his life and work is contained in his own autobiography, Trial and Error. In two volumes, the first takes his story up to the issue of the Balfour Declaration in 1917; the second to the founding of the State of Israel in 1948. 

A comprehensive and revealing story of the life of Chaim Weizmann

Chaim Weizmann: A Biography, this wonderfully comprehensive and revealing story of Weizmann’s life, character, and achievements, left the launch pad a decade ago. Reinharz had been researching aspects of Weizmann’s life since 1973, and at one point actually agreed to collaborate with his friend, historian Walter Laqueur, on an official biography. But Laqueur was very soon taken up by another project, and the idea faded away. Meanwhile, in 1985 and again in 1993, Reinharz published aspects of Weizmann’s life and achievements before again putting the subject aside. Then around 10 years ago, the urge to tackle Weizmann’s life story in full revived. He joined forces with Israeli historian Golani, both fired by the idea of producing the first full-scale, in-depth biography of Chaim Weizmann. 

Jehuda Reinharz is emeritus professor of modern Jewish history at Brandeis University, Massachusetts, and served as its president for 17 years. Born in Haifa in 1944, he moved to the United States as a teenager in 1961. He studied at Columbia University and Harvard before receiving his PhD at Brandeis in 1972.

Motti Golani is professor of Jewish history at Tel Aviv University, where he heads the Chaim Weizmann Institute for the Study of Zionism and Israel. Born in 1954, he studied at the Hebrew University before receiving his PhD at the University of Haifa. He has a connection with Oxford University in the UK, where he was a senior member of St. Anthony’s College in 1994, returning as visiting scholar in 2006. 

Together they have produced a deeply researched account of this most remarkable of men, and the story they have to tell grabs the reader from its earliest pages and sweeps them forward to its conclusion 812 pages later. What follows the narrative are 60 pages of notes, in which every one of the facts or incidents mentioned in the text is given its source and reference, allowing the reader to follow up any aspect of the story by referring back to its origin.

Yet the facts of Weizmann’s life, fascinating though they are, yield in interest to the authors’ examination of his quite extraordinary personality and the powerful effect it exercised on the people he wanted to influence. “A unique case,” the authors dub him, “unlike any other national leader of his time or, indeed, of any other.” The nearest comparison they can think of is Mahatma Gandhi, with both India and Israel emerging from what they call “the retreat of the British Empire.” But in the final analysis, they believe that the differences between the two leaders are greater than the similarities.

Weizmann came from obscure beginnings, but his intellectual brilliance revealed itself early on. In high school, he demonstrated an aptitude for science, and he went on to study chemistry in Germany. In 1897, aged 22, he moved to Switzerland to complete his studies at the University of Fribourg. It was a serendipitous move, for the following year he was able to attend the Second Zionist Congress in Basel without difficulty.

In 1904, he was appointed senior lecturer in the Chemistry Department of Manchester University. So he immigrated to England, and in Manchester he and his family remained until the mid-1930s. He joined the small English Zionist Federation, and it was as its vice-chair that he set about lobbying the great and the good in the English establishment. His objective was to gain Britain’s support for the creation of a Jewish national home in Palestine, and in this he was spectacularly successful.

By 1910 he had acquired a position of such influence and respect in scientific circles that friends and colleagues decided to propose him for membership in the prestigious Royal Society. The snag was that he was not a British citizen. Friends approached cabinet minister Herbert Samuel, and the naturalization process was expedited.

Thenceforth, Weizmann considered himself a proud British Jew and, despite his heavy Russian-Jewish accent, was accepted as such by the eminent political leaders he succeeded in meeting and convincing of the justice of the Zionist cause. It was only in 1948 that he renounced his British citizenship to assume his position as president of Israel.

“Weizmann appeared seemingly out of nowhere during World War I,” the authors tell us. Part of his rise to a position of influence was due to his success in inventing a method of producing synthetic acetone – a vital ingredient in the manufacture of weapons. News of his laboratory work in this field reached the government, and he was approached and asked to carry out large-scale trials. His system proved successful, and Britain became self-sufficient in a material critical for all weapons, from the smallest handgun to shells for the largest howitzer. 

“From a financial point of view,” write the authors, “Weizmann was not generously rewarded for his wartime services.” After much negotiation, he received only a “token award” (Weizmann’s words) of £10,000. What he did gain, however, was access to the highest echelons of government, allowing him to lobby for the Zionist cause. “Weizmann not only got to know officials at all levels of government,” say the authors, “but actually became part of the apparatus, an insider.” 

He painstakingly established a wide circle of personal contacts, and this finally resulted in his persuading his friend Arthur Balfour, the UK’s foreign secretary, to write his historic letter to Lord Rothschild stating in black and white that the British government “viewed with favor” the establishment of a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine. It was Weizmann, too, who converted that simple letter, not even typed on official Foreign Office notepaper, into a declaration whose wording was transposed, word for word, into the mandate granted by the League of Nations to Great Britain to govern Palestine. 

Weizmann’s circle of friendly relationships extended far beyond the shores of Great Britain. For example he, and no other Zionist leader, had access to US president Harry Truman, and the authors provide chapter and verse for the part Weizmann played in obtaining the president’s support for the establishment and recognition of the State of Israel.

Where his personal charisma finally failed was in his relations with Arab leaders. Reinharz and Golani provide an account of a secret meeting mentioned nowhere else than in the work of Palestinian historian Aref al-Aref. Arranged by two members of the Husseini family in 1918, it saw a small team headed by Weizmann on one side, and a group of Arab nationalist leaders on the other, including the Mufti of Jerusalem and the mayor of Jaffa. The fact that a copy of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion appeared on the table as the discussion proceeded tells the whole story. As the authors comment: “If such a meeting did take place, and if Aref’s account is accurate, it only served to confirm the assessment both sides had of each other’s intentions.”

Weizmann did better with regional Arab leaders. For example, he had a cordial meeting with emir Faisal, the son of King Sharif Hussein. They agreed that close cooperation between Jews and Arabs was necessary, but Faisal would not commit himself to an open policy of collaboration. It would be up to his father, the king. Weizmann continued to meet with Palestinians and Syrian Arabs, but in the end it all came to nothing. 

Authors Reinharz and Golani have produced a work of outstanding significance, furthering and deepening our understanding of the political and personal factors leading to, and following, the foundation of the State of Israel. Beyond a detailed account of the events themselves, they bring to the reader a depth of analysis and understanding of who Chaim Weizmann was as a human being. Especially recommended is their final Chapter 27, which they title “Contours of Memory.” In these 17 pages, they paint an in-depth picture of Weizmann, warts and all, and an explanation of how his personality shaped his commitment to the Zionist cause and the way he set about accomplishing his goal.

18 comments:

  1. Right, throw your pom poms up to cheerlead & ignore all his ugly wart chesronos because he's a Zionist. Never mind in DIN-Land that he was an off the Derech womanizer whose "Zionist hero" sister Minna Weizmann was sleeping with the infamous Nazi Kurt Prüfer! If old Chaimel was around today you'd be bashing him as from Mapai, the radically Socialist & anti-Torah bunch who even in the early days was too toxic to be allowed in coalitions.

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    1. Are you responsible for your mother? Or Rivka who had a son a killer and rapist ?

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  2. Dr Phil ,Esquire, Petach TikvahSeptember 1, 2024 at 8:14 AM

    Shulosh Shuveeois
    Is this a bad time to tell you that Rav Aharon Kotler's Sister went off the derech and joined the Haskala? Is this a bad time to tell you one of the children of the Chafetz Chayim who changed his name to Pupko was an ardent Zionist and a Mapainik? So yes! Let's bring out the warts!

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    1. Ehh,the latter were very unhappy about it,while the former was rather content & possibly reveled in it

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  3. That's the best comeback that you Zionists have got? That the humungous Yeitzer Hurah for Haskulah & Zionism lured away some relatives of gedolim among their countless victims? You're even bigger losers than imagined that you use that to try to normalize a Zionist sleeping with a Nazi!

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    1. Many gdolem's families became secular socialists and communists even those in prestige yeshivos who went otd, the moved to America and assimilated. None of them were Zionists.

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  4. Lol dr Phil
    We don't celebrate off the derech jews.

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  5. Gedalye Leibowitz EsqSeptember 1, 2024 at 10:21 PM

    Shulosh Shuveeois
    Your moniker "Shulosh Shuveeois" gives you away as a fake fraud and a phony! Shulois Shevuois doesnt exist in Halacha at all and not mentioned in Shulchan Aruch and the Mishna Torah as mentioned numerous times by DIN!
    5:08
    You equate Haskala with Zionists? HA Ha LMFAO!
    Haskala hated Zionists! Haskala loved Germany and Galut!
    Haskala spoke Yiddish! Zionists spoke Hebrew!
    The Zionists loved Eretz Yisrael! The Chafetz Chayim's son was a Zionist, the Netziv was one of the founders of Chovevei Zion! The descendants of the Haskala such as R' Aron Kotler's sister are gone to Judaism forever, yet the descendants of Zionists who moved to Israel have not assimilated! The assimilation rate in Israel is the lowest compared to the USA or Europe! For "one" Zionists living with a Nazi we have thousands upon thousands who built a beautiful country where in a recent Wall street survey stated that Israeli citizens are on the top 5 happiest people! Zionists built a country where the majority of the Jewish people now live and where most Torah institutions have been established. The Zionists built a country where there is more Torah learned than at any time in the entire Jewish history! Chaim Weizman z"l gets a lot of credit for that! Yehi Zichro Baruch!

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    1. How come isrealis from the moment they are yored have such a remarkably significant assimilation rate?Worse ironically the long term local Jews?
      Oh,check it up iirc many maskilim became later on zionists

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  6. Shulosh Shuveeois
    I don't get it! Are all frummies so sick like you?
    This is a story about the President of Israel Chaim Weizman who wanted so much for Jews to have a home, and if he had succeeded before 6 million Jews were so brutally murdered they would have hadf a home.
    So you come as a Tzaddik and mention a derogatory story about his sister? How low can you go? Is this what your Torah teaches you? If the answer is yes, I want no part of this cruel teaching! How perverted! Is it a wonder that you guys are so hated if you hate your own?
    I'm out!

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  7. Alice in Wonderland TzionimSeptember 2, 2024 at 6:35 AM

    This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  8. To readers of DIN
    This guy calling himself "Shulosh Shuveeois" is a bald-faced liar! Minna Weizmann a doctor in Palestine died 1925!!!!
    She was indeed recruited as a spy for Germany but for the FIRST World War. Many Jews fought FOR Germany in WW1!
    Curt Prufer who did recruit her joined the Nazi Party in 1937, 12 long years after Minna died! There is no writing or idication anywhere that she slept with him!
    Minna Weizmann served as a doctor with distinction in Haddassa Hospital!
    Only Chareidim are allowed to disparage and denigrate other Jews if they don't fit neatly into their agenda!
    זו תורה וזו שכרה
    Shame on him!!

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  9. 12:45
    Maskilim hated Zionists and what they stood for!
    There are no statistics of Israelis making Yerida who assimilate, but we do have statistics of Israelis living Israel and they all show that the assimilation rate is practically Zero!!! Zero! While in the USA Jews are assimilating at an alarming rate of over 85% and that is according to Bnei-Brit, hardly a frum organization!
    Bad mouthing Israel and those who live there will cost you Olam Haba ...ask the meraglim!

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  10. 12:45
    You are either delusional or a liar! Haskala tried eradicating Zionism, which stood for Israel as their homeland, Haskala's homeland was Germany!

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  11. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaim_Weizmann

    sister, Minna Weizmann, WAS THE LOVER of a German spy (& later NAZI diplomat), Kurt Prüfer & worked as a spy for Germany in Egypt (then British protectorate) in 1915. Minna was outed as a spy during a trip to Italy & was deported to Egypt to a British POW camp. Back in Cairo, she persuaded the consul of Russia to provide her safe passage, and en route to Russia, she managed to reconnect with Prüfer. Minna survived the war & returned to Palestine to work for the Zionist women's org, Hadassah [11]

    (Anderson, Scott (2013). Lawrence in Arabia: War, Deceit, Imperial Folly & Making of the Modern Middle East. Knopf Doubleday. p. 128–129)

    NICE TRY TO DOWNPLAY PRUFER AS JUST SOME LOW FUNCTIONARY WITH NAZI MEMBERSHIP. PRUFER JOINED THE NAZI PARTY YEARS EARLIER THAN YOU CLAIM IN EARLY 1933 WHEN IT WAS CALLED NATIONAL SOZIALISTISCHE DAP according to Ernst Klee: Auschwitz Perpetrators, accomplices and victims & what became of them. A biographical encyclopedia , Frankfurt am Main 2013, p. 323 f

    https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_Pr%C3%BCfer

    Prufer was employed by Topf & Söhne in Dept D for industrial combustion. There he specialized in crematorium. From 1928 he was head of production of crematoria & from 1935 chief engineer

    Topf & Söhne worked with the SS , including Karl Bischoff & took orders from the Reich Security Office. The Topf & Söhne memorial draws attention to the voluntary nature the private company supported the killing in concentration camps

    “Accomplices like Prüfer reduced mass murder to a ‘business transaction’, a ‘technical task’.”

    Mobile & stationary crematoria were developed & installed for concentration camps Buchenwald, Dachau, Gross Rosen, Mauthausen & Auschwitz. Using prisoners & purchasing cheaply, Prüfer was able to undercut competitors in the growing concentration camp market

    Chief engineer Prüfer was aware his designs of cadaver destruction ovens violated laws. Still, he continued to design new processes that made cremation of Holocaust victims more efficient. He took energy savings & increasing number of corpses into account

    On Aug 19, 1942, Prüfer took part in a conference of Waffen-SS & Police Auschwitz, for construction of 4 new crematoria. He was also on site several times when ventilation systems of gas chambers in Auschwitz were tested. In Nov 1942, Prüfer's superior, Fritz Sander, applied for a patent for "continuously operating corpse incineration for mass operation", which unlike muffle ovens, enabled continuous incineration of corpses

    "Crematorium II was completed despite unspeakable difficulties, with day & night operation. The ovens fired in the presence of chief engineer Prüfer & function perfectly"

    – Waffen-SS & Police Auschwitz writing 28 Jan 1943 to SS Brigadeführer Kammler

    Prüfer was arrested by American military police on May 30, 1945. They knew Topf & Söhne built crematoria in concentration camps. Jun 13, 1945, he was released & destroyed all contracts with the SS. After Thuringia was handed to the Soviets in Jul 1945, he built a waste incineration plant on their behalf. Oct 11, 1945, Soviet secret service inquired at Topf & Söhne about the "Auschwitz engineer", but was fobbed off. Prüfer & 3 other employees were arrested by Soviet officers on Mar 4, 1946

    Prüfer was sentenced to 25 years forced labor by a Soviet military tribunal on Apr 17, 1948 in Moscow

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  12. No Indication?
    Your article proves my point! Exactly! LOL! Ha Ha
    According to the above article Minna was a spy for the First World War when many Jews fought for Germany as well!
    According to the article that you yourself posted (LOL) Pruter Joined the Nazis in 1933! Minna Dies in 1925, eight full years before!
    Even according to the article that he worked for "Topf & Söhne in Dept D for industrial combustion. where he specialized in crematorium. " that was all after she was long Dead!

    Again the notion in Wikipedia that she was his lover is not documented anywhere, and Wikipedia does not give any sources for that claim!

    Bottom Line:
    Chareidie Roshe Yeshivois and Chassidishe Rebbes had children and siblings that joined the Haskala such as the sister of Reb Aaron Kotler Z'l, The Chafetz Chaim had a son a Zionist who called himself, Aryeh Leib Poupko, he was a Mizrachist! The Netziv had a son Meir Bar-Ilan who was also a Mizrachist, in fact he headed the movement! I can go on and on and in this post I'll give a hint of what will come ...if you guys keep denigrating Israel's leaders.
    Hint: Find out from Belzer Chassidim what happened to the previous Belzer Rebbe's daughter!
    Chaim Weizmann fought for the State of Israel and Hashem gave life to see it come to fruition in full glory!

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  13. DIN if you need more stuff, I have documented letters about the families of the Chazon Ish, R' Simcha Wasserman and much more, all 100% documented, I will send it to your email!
    These Chareidim have to be put into place as many of their families were out right apikorsim and damaged the Jewish people in ways that we will never recover! For them to keep hitting Israel's founders is outright disgusting, and I'm happy that there is finally an outlet to air these historical facts to set them straight! I'll be more than happy to be part of this expose!

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  14. I even provided the citation for you from Scott Anderson’s book in 2013 that Ms. Weizmann was LOVER of the NAZI. What you are also glossing over is that the Kraut joined the Nazis before Hitler consolidated his power - during the same Weimar Republic from WWI - when the Nazis were still a fringe group. R’ Yaakov Emden on maseches Megillah points out that the Germans were always Amalek on the scale that he describes as sounding like Final Solution Nazi style. And it’s absurd that you are grossly megazem that someone criticizing an alter radical Leftist Chiloni like Hymie Weizmann (not Eretz Yisroel, chalila vechas), should be judged as from the Meraglim. Were you absent from yeshiva when they taught the chiluk tzevishen true Toradik Zionism & secular “Zionism”?

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