Chaim Weizmann

Chaim Weizmann was born in 1874 in Motal

Weizmann was born in 1874 in Motal, then part of the Russian Empire and now in Belarus. He was the third of 15 children of Oizer and Rachel Weizmann, and his father was a timber merchant. He studied at a cheder from age 4 and later attended high school in Pinsk, where he joined Zionist circles.

In 1892 he left for Germany and studied chemistry in Darmstadt and then in Berlin. He completed his studies at the University of Fribourg in Switzerland and received a doctorate in 1899. He then taught at the University of Geneva.

In 1904 he moved to Britain to lecture in chemistry at the University of Manchester. He developed a bacterial fermentation process to produce acetone, which was used to make explosives for Britain in World War I. From 1916 to 1919 he directed the British Admiralty laboratories.

Weizmann had a role in the talks that led to the Balfour Declaration in 1917. In 1920 he was elected president of the Zionist Organization. In 1934 he founded a research institute in Rehovot, later named the Weizmann Institute of Science.

He was elected president of Israel on 16 February 1949 and served until his death in 1952. He is buried beside his wife Vera at his home on the grounds of the Weizmann Institute.