Talk:Chaim Weizmann

Balfour Quote
Although the Balfour Declaration stipulated that "nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of the existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine", Weizmann said, “with regard to the Arab question - the British told us that there are several hundred thousand Negroes there but this is a matter of no consequence.”

Weizmann quoted by Arthur Ruppin [ Fateful Triangle, p481, see source: Yosef Heller, Bama'avak Lamdina (Jerusalem, 1985), p.140] ) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.114.77.59 (talk) 00:04, 14 September 2005 (UTC)


 * What's the background to Weizmann's usage of the term Negro for, apparently, the Palestinian Arabs??? --198.59.190.201 21:33, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

I have been interested in this quote, and requested a translation from a professor of Hebrew language. The word in question is "kushim" ("Kushite", that is, from Ethiopia), and it is unclear that it has the same contemporary nuance as "Negro" -- "black" may be a more neutral term. However, the term "kushim" has a perjorative sense.

The Weizmann quotation comes from the recounting of Arthur Ruppin, a prominent early 20th c. Zionist and demographer who was an associate of Weizmann. In Heller's book, Ruppin is reporting a conversation that he had with Weizmann about the Balfour Declaration. From Heller's text, it is apparent that while Weizmann is describing the analysis of British authorities, he is repeating it as if their analysis is to be taken seriously. Since Ruppin is quoting Weizmann, it is appropriate to see a little of the context of his own remarks, translated from his original German to Hebrew and then to English:

Dr. A. Rupin (German): Dr. Weitzmann told me once how he received the Balfour Declaration. And I asked him: “At the time, what did you think about the Arab question?” He answered, “As far as the Arab question, the British told us, that there are hundreds of thousands of blacks and apparently there is no value.” It showed me that at this time our supervisors had no clue about the Arab question and even a long time afterwards they reported this question to Keren Zayit…

With all of my good desire, to live in peace with the Arabs, I came to a conclusion, that there is no way to conclude in a peaceful manner with the Arabs without giving up our Zionist desires (to establish a Jewish state), and this I will not do nor do I want to do this, because it would mean suicide. I would rather choose a direct death at the hands of an Arab rather than give up on our demand to establish a state. I say that today the only answer to the Arab question is: to build and to build and to build, to increase [our numbers] from year to year, and to strengthen our position, and only then will an agreement be reached. It will not come based on a written contract, as if it will come from heaven…

Basically our existence will be a fact, and they will not be able to drive us out of here, and will need to get used to our existence, in much the same way as they have gotten used to other things.

[Harry Mairson 11-6-06] — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.163.155.79 (talk) 03:42, 7 November 2006 (UTC)


 * However you word the quote it sounds about as bad - it's the thought that counts I guess. The Zionist opinion has been one of opression from before day one ( the rest of the quote, after the Negro/black comment, is the most troublesome. Didn't he also, in 1939, declare war on Germany, unwise when you have no army and thousands of your people trapped in enemy territory ( not a great tactical thinker unless he had other plans that were more important.)159.105.80.141 13:50, 8 May 2007 (UTC)


 * This quote from Arthur Ruppin is from his talk in the meeting of the Executive of the Jewish Agency on May 19, 1936, shortly after the strike of the Arab majority population of Palestine. Yosef Heller apparently reproduces all all talks from that meeting. --L.Willms (talk) 20:50, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

Why are you using a comment made in 1936 to prove a Zionist agenda from day one? Day one Zionism is the 1860s, or at the least 1881 with the first wave of Jewish immigration to Palestine. Weizmann's comment may signify Weizmann's own realization that the establishment of a Jewish state at the expense of the majority Arab population is the only solution, but that was in 1936. Preceding it was half a century (from day one) of the Zionist movement vehemently rejecting the idea of a Jewish state. Proof to that can be found not only in public declarations but in the internal political struggle within the Zionist Organization itself. Jabotinsky quit the organization only five years earlier (1931) on that issue when his minority position for a Jewish state was rejected. But after decades of Arab refusal for any form of Jewish immigration and violent attacks against Jews that were met with a policy of restraint (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Havlagah) - mainstream Zionism finally changed its agenda. Maybe 1936 was day one for that change of heart in the context of the Arab Revolt with its main demand to stop Jewish immigration all together. NadavNahari (talk) 06:54, 2 May 2022 (UTC)

Semi-Protection
Serious NPOV violations, regardless of veracity of Hecht accusations.
 * In a letter addressed to Weizman by Joel Brand in 1943(?) requesting any assistance whatsoever to the plight of Europe's Jewry, Weizmann had his secretary respond that he was "Quite preoccupied" and failed to even acknowledge the ongoing holocaust.
 * This is not surprising posthumously however, because Weizmann had made it clear in letters to various Marxist-Zionist controlled newspapers that "The Jews of Europe are dust on the wheels of history."

The above, as well as other reverted comments, is a violation of NPOV. Personal opinions about Weizmann do not belong in an encyclopædic entry. Avi 07:54, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Protected
I know. It's a slow brewing edit war, but protection for 2-3 days won't hurt. Please discuss this here and not in edit summaries. Thanks. --Woohookitty(cat scratches) 08:27, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Is this article ready to be unprotected? · Katefan0(scribble)/ mrp 22:15, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Nobel prize
Did he win one for his chemical discoveries? I'll research this.--Jondel 05:26, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
 * NO. Because he was not the head of the team discovering the fermentation, William Henry Perkin, Jr. was the professor resposible for the work, he emploied Weizman and the head of the fermentation work was Auguste Fernbach. The industrial application and the use of the aceton was part of the work of Halford Strange. Showing clearly that --Stone 08:43, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Show the fight with Perkin from the two directions, one stating Perkin wanted the credit and pushed Weizmann out and the other stating Weizmann was pranoic about his invention and his money.--Stone 09:19, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Show the fight with Perkin from the two directions, one stating Perkin wanted the credit and pushed Weizmann out and the other stating Weizmann was pranoic about his invention and his money.--Stone 09:19, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Show the fight with Perkin from the two directions, one stating Perkin wanted the credit and pushed Weizmann out and the other stating Weizmann was pranoic about his invention and his money.--Stone 09:19, 13 August 2007 (UTC)


 * might be good to read for his politocal views before 1914.--Stone 09:32, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
 * is another source.--Stone 09:34, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

spelling
since he signed his own journal articles "C. Weizmann" wouldnt it make more sense for the article to be under "Chaim Weizmann" — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.209.35.32 (talk) 05:06, 18 May 2007 (UTC)


 * I know that modern convention in Hebrew transliteration calls for Haim Weizman, but I agree with the above; he spelled his name Chaim Weizmann. That is how he was known in English among his contemporaries.  Doesn't that trump modern conventions?  Admittedly, we don't call King Henry VIII Henri Rex, but he did not use fully modern English; Weizmann did. Baronplantagenet 19:24, 31 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Yeah, and this is a guy who lived in England for YEARS. It's not like his name needs transliterating. — Preceding unsigned comment added by QuizzicalBee (talk • contribs) 20:21, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree, it should be changed back to Chaim, which is how he always spelled it, and how he is invariably referred to in English. Afaik it was a more common English spelling at that time, and even later for someone with that name, e.g. Chaim Herzog's books in English spell his name with a C too.John Z 22:27, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I also agree.--Doron 11:25, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Me too. Who's going to do it? Jayjg (talk) 03:41, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
 * I did it; the editor who converted it to "Weizman" went to the absurd lengths of renaming the Weizmann Institute of Science and Faisal-Weizmann Agreement to fit his "official name" scheme! Jayjg (talk) 03:49, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Actually, Weizman is correct and Weizmann is wrong. (a) The Russian spelling has ONE 'n'. (b) It was a well-known distinction in German-derived names that Jews have one 'n' in '-man' endings and Germans have two, '-mann'. 92.12.23.104 (talk) 11:21, 21 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Almost all English sources use Weizmann, and that is also how he wrote it himself. You can check his signature here. Zerotalk 13:26, 21 May 2022 (UTC)

Tochnit Aleph
I know this is a start topic but I am surprised that there is nothing about Weizmann's involvement with the DIN and Tochnit Aleph. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.233.176.22 (talk) 23:44, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Religion, Judaism?
it seems very unlikely, i think he was an atheist or something, most scientists are. he was verys secularized, it seems weird if he were to be a believer of judaism. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Scarfac3 (talk • contribs) 12:51, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

balfour declaration
"The importance of Weizmann's work to the ongoing war effort encouraged Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour to issue the Balfour Declaration of 1917 in support of Weizmann's Zionist objectives as Weizmann ascended to the presidency of the British Zionist Federation." — While it may be that the source makes that claim, there isn't a single modern historian of Zionism who believes it. Usually it is not even mentioned as a possibility. I checked five articles specifically on the question of why the Balfour Declaration was made. Only one mentioned this theory at all, and then just to call it "wonderfully scurrilous". I can bring references to qualify the sentence, but I'd much rather take it out. I think that Brown's undoubted qualifications as a historian of science don't make him an expert on political history, especially on complex issues like this one. Zerotalk 00:16, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

communist convictions?
Methinks there is a macabre double meaning in this sentence: "A third sibling, Shmuel, chose to remain in the Soviet Union due to his communist convictions and was executed as an alleged traitor in 1939 during the Stalinist Great Purge." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.113.121.103 (talk) 16:26, 22 March 2015 (UTC)

New text
The new text is mostly unencyclopedic hagiography. I strongly suspect copyvio too. Zerotalk 02:14, 6 July 2015 (UTC)


 * Having read this article 1st time yesterday, it appears to have been largely written by people (no disrespect to them) who did not have English as a mother tongue. I have tidied some of the grammar, fulled contractions and deleted in later stages of the article some repetitious information. An interesting article generally (my paternal grandmother - not Jewish- grew up in Manchester while he was living there).Cloptonson (talk) 05:45, 20 July 2015 (UTC)

Sister/spy?
According to the book Lawrence in Arabia by Scott Anderson, Chaim had a sister Minna or Mina Veizmann, a medical doctor who spied for Germany in the Middle East during World War One. I am not going to insert anything into the main article at this time, as I am not yet confident that I have identified another reliable source for this claim.

The New York Times, in reviewing the book (which it classifies as 'military history', states:

"One of the book’s startling revelations about Curt Prüfer, a German diplomat in Cairo with espionage connections, is that he deployed Minna Weizmann - a seldom-mentioned sister of Chaim Weizmann, Israel’s first president - as a pro-German spy. Also involved in espionage was Aaron Aaronsohn, a Zionist and agronomist, who worked his way into the good graces of the Ottoman regime".

A search of Google Books finds Chaim's sister mentioned in My Life as a Radical Jewish Woman: Memoirs of a Zionist Feminist in Poland, stating on page 127 that:

"In August 1918, he and one of Chaim Weizmann's sisters, Dr. Mina Weizmann, were sent to Vienna in an exchange between Austrian and Russian prisoners of war". ("He" is identified in the previous paragraph as the writer's son, who was apparently held in an internment camp - presumably by Germany.)

Further references can be found at the following websites:


 * http://cosmos.ucc.ie/cs1064/jabowen/IPSC/php/art.php?aid=120078
 * http://maviboncuk.blogspot.com.au/2004/07/jewish-spies-in-ottoman-palestine.html
 * http://1914-1918.invisionzone.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=190918
 * http://www.geni.com/people/Dr-Minna-Weizmann-Lowe/3960629548610077733 (family tree)
 * http://kehilalinks.jewishgen.org/motol/weizmann_family_from_motol.htm (family photo)

Is this worthy of inclusion in the main article? If true, it certainly seems relevant that the sister of Israel's first president had spied for Germany. If the reader feels that it is worthy of inclusion, they should feel free to make the necessary changes to the 'Family' section of the page.

Thoughts? Ambiguosity (talk) 05:03, 6 March 2016 (UTC)


 * This book p. 268, has a biography of Minna that includes her spying. Zerotalk 05:57, 6 March 2016 (UTC)

Weizmann’s portrait "1945"
Regarding Weizmann’s portrait titled “File:חיים ויצמן-JNF039526.jpeg|thumb|Chaim Weizmann, 1945”: in 1945 Weizmann was nearly 70 years old… This image must be from around 1915 or even earlier. 89.139.32.105 (talk) 09:41, 3 August 2019 (UTC)
 * I have removed the year for now. To be sure, per the image description page, the year appears to have been provided directly by the Jewish National Fund, but the Commons community has long ago learned that such archives can contain erroneous metadata. Regards, HaeB (talk) 23:52, 8 October 2020 (UTC)

Out of context sentence
"Weizmann's personality became an issue but Weizmann had an international profile unlike his colleagues or any other British Zionist. He was President of EZF Executive Council. He was also criticized by Harry Cohen. A London delegate raised a censure motion: that Weizmann refused to condemn the regiment[emphasis mine]."

However there is no mention of a regiment in the preceding text that puts the censure motion in context. Was a regiment being proposed or was an existing regiment being condemned for doing something the Zionists didn't like?Cloptonson (talk) 10:03, 2 April 2021 (UTC)


 * Yes, and we're still looking for context in 2023 as the carnage mounts. Strong Language (talk) 06:13, 11 November 2023 (UTC)