WEIZMANN, CHAIM. (1874-1952). Russian-born chemist, Zionist leader and Israel’s first President. TLS. (“Ch. Weizmann”). 1p. 4to. London, June 9, 1937. On the letterhead of the Jewish Agency for Palestine. To Eliezer Kaplan.

“I am very sorry to pester you with money matters, and I hope you will forgive me for reminding you that I should be grateful if you could now pay the Daniel Sieff Institute the £500 which is due from the Organisation [sic.] as its contribution for this year. I hope that at the forthcoming Congress, we shall be able to have the Institute included in the regular Budget for some similar sum, so that it shall not be your responsibility and mine any longer. In view of the fact that the Institute has done and is doing a very great deal of work on the orange problem, which is one of Palestine’s most important practical problems, and also in view of its co-operation with the Agricultural Experiment Station, I feel that some such small contribution might be justified.

If for any reason it is difficult for you to pay the whole £500 now, perhaps you could send on £300 at once to Rehoboth, and the rest could wait till the end of the year. The cheque should be made out to the Daniel Sieff Research Institute, and sent to Dr. B. Bloch, P.O.B. 26, Rehoboth...”

After teaching chemistry at the University of Geneva, Weizmann immigrated to England where he accepted a position at Manchester University. While there, he gathered a group of Zionists that came to be known as the Manchester School whose main purpose was to disseminate information about Zionism through the publication of pamphlets, books and newspaper articles. As president of the Jewish Agency for Palestine and the World Zionist Organization, Weizmann was instrumental in convincing the British cabinet to support a Jewish settlement in Palestine and devoted much of his energy during the 1930s to settling Jewish refugees there.

In 1934, Weizmann and physicist Benjamin M. Bloch (1900-1959), helped found a research institution near Weizmann’s home in Rehoboth, the Daniel Sieff Research Institute, named for the late son of Manchester businessman Daniel Sieff, vice-chairman of British retailer Marks & Spencer, and his wife, Rebecca Marks, longtime president of the Women’s International Zionist Organization, who underwrote the cost.

In 1949, the research and graduate educational institution was renamed the Weizmann Institute of Science. Weizmann served as the first president from 1934-1952 (German chemist Fritz Haber having died enroute to lead the organization). At the time of our letter, Bloch chaired its physics department and held a leadership role at the financially struggling institution. He would later become its administrative director.

Weizmann became Israel’s first president on February 16, 1949, a position he retained until his death three years later. In addition to his life-long work on behalf of the creation of Israel, Weizmann made several important contributions to science, including the invention of the acetone-butanol-ethanol fermentation process, which produces acetone through fermentation.

In 1855, Moses Montefiore purchased the first Jewish owned orange grove. Citrus cultivation rapidly expanded in Palestine during the second half of the 19th century, some of which was financed by Jewish philanthropist Baron Edmond de Rothschild. Thanks in part to the success of the Jaffa orange, which became a symbol of Jewish-Arab collaboration, by 1939 oranges were the primary export of the region and, therefore, of primary concern to the agricultural experiments station at the Daniel Sieff Institute. Despite a decline in citrus cultivation during and after World War II, by the 1970s “oranges evolved into one of the icons of the young Israeli society, celebrated in countless poems, stories, children songs, paintings, and films,” (“The Rise and Fall of Israel’s Oranges,” Tablet, Gur).

With an ink docket stamp as well as several marginal notes. Folded into quarters. File holes in the left margin. Paperclip and staple marks in the upper left corner. Some overall discoloration and wear. In overall near fine condition.