Chaim Azriel Weizmann : biography

Fighters of the Jewish brigade acting in Italy firstly met Jewish who survived during Holocaust in Europe. After the war was finished, the brigade was moved to Belgium and Holland. And in 1946, as the british government and the heads of Jewish ishuve started to have conflicts, it was dismissed. The military experience which the fighters got during the war, was useful in forming the defense army of Israel.

According to Joseph Harmatz’s memoirs, who was a member of Jewish secret organization Nokmim (Jewish revenge), which was formed in spring of 1945 and took the aim to make terror to Nazi criminals of the whole Nazi Germany; the head of the organization let Weizmann into the plans of the organization. And the latter, probably having learnt about the terror of Holocaust, could not refuse to help terrorists and prepared toxin for poisoning water supplies of five large cities of Germany, but the act of terror was not performed.

Creating the government of Israel

At the first post-war congress of Zionists, Weizmann, who was seen as a protégé of Great Britain, was not reelected for the position of the chairman of the Zionists international organization. However, meanwhile, he kept working at creating the Jewish government in Palestine.

In 1947 Weizmann was representing the position of the International Zionists organization in front of the special committee of Palestine question of the United Nations Organization. He managed to convince the committee to include Negev into the territory of the Jewish government. He also took part in the work of the general assembly of U.N.O., which was discussing recommendations of the committee about dividing Palestine. On 29 November 1947, by the majority of votes, U.N.O. accepted a resolution about dividing Palestine.

Weizmann received a letter in the same day the Israel government was founded. It was from the heads of labor parties of Israel and the letter said that they were going to nominate him as a candidate for the position of the president. In у few days Chaim Weizmann managed to convince the president of the United States, Truman, in a private conversation, to give the new Israel government a preferential loan of 100 million dollars and developing diplomatic relations between governments after a democratic administration would be chosen.

On 17 May 1948 Weizmann was elect the head of the Temporary Government council of Israel and in February of 1949 his candidacy was confirmed for the position of the first president of the country. However, by that time the age and diseases didn’t let Weizmann to hold government business actively. After a year of being reelected for the second term, Chaim Weizmann died on 9 November 1952, after a long suffered disease.

Publications

Weizmann’s autobiography “Trials and mistakes” was firstly published in English in 1949. Since that time it was republished in Hebrew, Yiddish and a few European languages.

Collection of his speeches was also published. In 1969 they started to publish his correspondence and documents. His achievement in the scientific field of chemistry should be put into a separate category. Hу had approximately one hundred patents for chemical processes.