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

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.■

• Chaim Weizmann: A Biography
• Jehuda Reinharz and Motti Golani (Haim Watzman, translator)
• The Tauber Institute Series for the Study of European Jewry, 2024 
• 820 pages; $33.16