Britain
Chaim Weizmann
1874–1952 Chemist; director of the Admiralty laboratories from 1916; Zionist leader
Born in a village in the Russian Empire (now Belarus), Chaim Weizmann studied chemistry in Germany and Switzerland, moved to Britain in 1904 to teach at the University of Manchester and became a British citizen in 1910. By 1915 he had developed a fermentation method of producing acetone, needed for explosives, and he moved to London as adviser on acetone supply to the Admiralty and the Ministry of Munitions. From 1916 he directed the Admiralty's laboratories. The favor he gained gave him access to senior ministers, and he conducted Zionist negotiations with the British government that ended on 2 November 1917 with the Balfour Declaration. He became president of the World Zionist Organization in 1920 and was elected the first president of Israel in 1949. He died in 1952.