WEIZMANN, CHAIM

(b. Motol, White Russia, 27 November 1874; d. Rehovot, Israel, 9 November 1952), organic chemistry, biochemistry.

“Chemistry is my private occupation. It is this activity in which I rest from my social tasks,” Thus did Chaim Weizmann describe the contrapuntal relationship between his lifelong career as a scientist and his leadership of the Zionist movement. In his disciplined mind these two vocations, representing reason and faith, were made harmonious. The intellectual and physical power that science conveys was to help free the Jews for their return to Palestine and was to form a vital, integral part of a revived, modern Jewish culture.

After early religious and secular schooling within the segregated Jewish community of rural Russia, Weizmann, at the age of twelve, entered the Gymnasium at Pinsk and was there exposed to gentile ways and Western European thought. Although his grades were uniformly high, chemistry was his favorite subject. With parental encouragement he set out to gain advanced knowledge in that field at the technical institutes of Darmstadt (1893–1894) and Berlin (1895–1898), where Liebermann and his students (among them Bistrzycki) were investigating polycyclical aromatic compounds of particular interest to dye manufacturers. When Bistrzycki went to the University of Fribourg, Switzerland, Weizmann followed, Soon afterward (1899), Weizmann wrote the dissertation “I. Elektrolytische Reduktion von 1-Nitroanthrachinon. II. Ueber die Kondensation von Phenan-247 threnchinon U. 1-Nitroanthrachinon mit einigen phenolen” and was awarded the Ph.D. summa cum laude. He subsequently joined Karl Graebe at the University of Geneva as Privatdozent. Extensive research on the naphthacene quinones led to patents that Weizmann sold profitably to French and German dye companies. Meanwhile he was rising to leadership in the world Zionist movement.

Weizmann’s decision to move to Manchester in 1904 was prompted by numerous considerations, including greater professional opportunity and a premonition that England could do the most for establishing a Jewish national homeland in Palestine. At Manchester, Weizmann enrolled as a student at the university. The following year, the head of the chemistry department, William H. Perkin, Jr., appointed him research fellow, and in 1907 senior lecturer, in biochemistry. Weizmann secured additional income by serving as consultant for local industry and selling new patents. At this time he also married Vera Charzmann, a physician.

The university’s exceptional scientific faculty stimulated Weizmann in this, the most scientifically productive period of his life. Effective teaching attracted students who did research under his direction. The quest for alizarin-type dyes continued along previous lines: the polyhydroxylation of naphthacene qunione, for example, yielded colors of moderate utility. About 1909 Weizmann added biochemical investigations to his research, seeking to synthesize various naturally occurring peptides; he later studied the photochemical behavior of amino acids, proteins, and ketones. He also began investigating germentation reactions, searching for a strain of bacteria that would convert carbohydrates into isoamy1 alcohol–a precursor, via isoprene, of synthetic rubber. Instead, in 1912, he found the strain Clostricium acetobutylicum, which broke starches down into one part ethanol, three parts acetone, and six parts butanol. During World War I, when great quantities of acetone were needed to plasticize the propellant cordite, Weizmann successfully engineered its massive production in Great Britain for the Admiralty and Ministry of Munitions. Plants were also built in India, Canada, and the United States; their production continued after the war, butanol then being the prefferred product for use in auto lacquers. Weizmann, in effect, opened the Microbiological road to the production of industrial chemicals.

Meanwhile, in 1917, Weizmann secured from Lord Balfour a declaration of British help in establishing a national homeland for the Jews, the Subsequent realization of which took so much of Weizmann’s time that he stopped all scientific activity except for promoting the growth of Hebrew University in Jerusalem and his founding of the Daniel Sieff (later Weizmann) Institute of Science in Rehovot (1934), both of which soon became notable centers of scientific learning.

In 1934 Weizmann simultaneously resumed his research at Rehovot and London, adding significantly to lines of investigation begun before 1918. particularly those that were relevant to Palestine’s economy: the commercial synthesis of organic compounds from agricultural products or petroleum. Of considerable technical significance was his discovery of several reaction mechanisms by which petroleum fractions could be reduced, by cracking to ethylene and diene fragments, and then recombined into polynuclear aromatics of the type he had used earlier in his dye researches. Previously such dye intermediates could be obtained only from coal tar.

Practical, rather than fundamental, scientific considerations motivated Weizmann’s research. Apart from some interest late in his career in reaction mechanisms, his work is generally devoid of theoretical content. With his elevation in 1948 to the presidency of Israel, his career as a Zionist came to a climax and his career as a creative scientist came to an end.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

I. Original Works. A nearly complete list of Weizmann’s 100 or so patents and of his 102 scientific publications can be obtained from the Weizmann Archives. Rehovot. Israel. Abstracts of most of his articles are in Chemisches Zentralblatt or chemical Abstracts. The Weizmann Archives hold the great bulk of his papers and continue to expand their collection. The documents are written in English. French. German, Hebrew. Russian, and Yiddish. The nonscientific Letters and Papers of Chaim Wizmann are currently being edited in a proposed 25 vols.: vols. I–VII, covering correspondence, 1885–1917, appeared in Hebrew and English eds., the latter published by Oxford University Press (London, 1968–1975). Weizmann’s scientific correspondence is being edited for publication under the supervision of Ernst D. Bergmann, of Hebrew University. Jerusalem. and David Lavie of the Weizmann Institute. Weizmann’s autobiography. Trial and Error (New York. 1949). was written between 1940 and 1948. Less than 5 percent of its 482 pages are devoted to his scientific career.

II. Secondary Literature.Chaim Weizmann, a Biography by several Hands. Meyer W. Weisgal and Joel Carmichael, eds. (London, 1962), contains Selman A. Waksman’s, “Weizmann as a Bacteriologist.” By far the best review of Weizmann’s contributions to science is E. D. Bergmann’s obituary notice in Journal of the chemical Society (1953), 2840–2844.

John J. Beer