Chemistry at the Weizmann Institute: A Concise History

by Moshe Levy and Gershom (Jan M.L.) Martin

Draft document under heavy editing -- caveat lector

The story of the Institute begins in 1933 when Dr. Chaim Weizmann, chemist and longtime World Zionist Organization leader, decided to establish a center of scientific research in Rehovot, which was then a small agricultural community in the British Mandate. With the help of his friends, Israel and Rebecca Sieff, they built a research institute that would bear the name of their son, Daniel. In the spring of 1934, the Daniel Sieff Research Institute came into existence.

The Institute also housed the private library of Fritz Haber -- a unique collection on the history and philosophy of science.

At that time the Daniel Sieff Research Institute had two main branches of science: organic chemistry and biochemistry. The staff included 10 full-time scientists that dealt mainly with problems connected to the country's economy: citrus, dairy, silk and tobacco, as well as the synthesis of chemical products of medical value.

In 1939, World War II broke out and it was both natural and inevitable that the scientific staff of the Sieff Institute would become deeply involved in the war effort, especially in the production of pharmaceuticals -- such as the anti-malarial drug Atabrine and the painkiller Evipan (hexobarbital) -- and other chemicals that were essential for the war effort and for the local population.

The initial Scientific staff of the Sieff Institute were:

In 1944, Dr. Weizmann celebrated his 70th birthday and his close associates, motivated by Meyer Weisgal, decided to expand the Sieff Institute into a multidisciplinary complex to be called the Weizmann Institute of Science. The cornerstone was laid in 1946.

The war of Independence started in 1947 and much effort was directed into supplying the military needs of the Israeli Army. The scientific branch of the army (better known by its Hebrew acronym heme"d) used the facilities of Institute buildings and many of the members of the unit continued as scientists in the Institute. The WIS was inaugurated on November 2, 1949.

In the following years, a number of academic units were created. In the first Scientific Report available to us (1953), the following Departments and Sections report on their activity:

At first sight some of these departments would seem to have no connection to Chemistry. Yet note that even in the Applied Mathematics department, some research activity was going on in what would nowadays be called chemometrics, not to mention quantum chemistry.

The founding of the Biochemistry Department occurred comparatively late. David Rittenberg was appointed at its head in 1956.

A "Theoretical Chemical Physics" (shortly hereafter renamed Chemical Physics) department was founded in 1962, with Shneior Lifson at the helm. [Prof. Lifson simultaneousy served as Scientific Director of the Weizmann Institute, 1962-1966.]

In 1952, Ernst David Bergmann left for the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and in the same year founded the Israel Atomic Energy Commission. After a brief transitional period, Franz Sondheimer was appointed head of the Organic Chemistry Department in 1955 and held this position until 1963. Ernest Wenkert briefly was acting head in 1964, succeeded in 1965 by David Lavie. In 1967 Organic Chemistry was merged with the X-ray crystallography and Photochemistry units, and renamed the Department of Chemistry. Gerhard M. J. Schmidt [Obituary in Israel Journal of Chemistry; remembered by Jack D. Dunitz] became its first chairman. [He also briefly served as Director of the Weizmann Institute in 1969.]

As discussed in Sylvia Flowers' thesis (see Sources), the Sieff Institute educated graduate students basically since its inception (the 1935 personnel roster includes three students). Usually these were technically registered at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and obtained their degrees there. In December 1957, the decision was made to open a graduate school, which opened its doors in 1958 as the Feinberg Graduate School (named after the parents of Abraham Feinberg). The first official Weizmann Institute Ph.D. was awarded in 1964: in January 1967 the Feinberg Graduate School was chartered by the Board of Regents of the State of New York.

In 1970 the position of Scientific Director was absorbed into the Presidency of the Weizmann Institute, with the proviso that the President had to be a scientist henceforth. Albert Sabin, the first President under the new rules, decided to reorganize the Institute into five scientific Faculties [plus the Feinberg Graduate School]: Mathematics (later renamed Mathematics and Computer Science), Physics, Chemistry, Biophysics-Biochemistry (later renamed just Biochemistry), and Biology. [These five Faculties exist to the present day.] At that stage, the Plastics Research unit of the Polymer Chemistry department was spun off as a separate Department under David Vofsi, while the rump Polymer Chemistry department became part of the Biophysics-Biochemistry faculty, and continued with a more biological focus under Aharon Katchalsky (Katzir). [The latter, hy"d, was killed in the 1972 terror attack on Lod Airport.] Gerhard M. J. Schmidt became the first Dean of the Chemistry Faculty. It at first consisted of four Departments:

After the death of Gerhard Schmidt in 1971, David Samuel (3rd Viscount Samuel, grandson of Herbert Samuel) took over as the Dean.

It was then decided to split the Chemistry Department into two separate departments: Organic Chemistry and Structural Chemistry. Thus was the structure of the Faculty of Chemistry from 1972 until 1990:

Prof. Samuel was succeeded as Dean by Shneior Lifson in 1975, in turn succeeded 1980-1985 by Zeev Luz (Izchak Z. Steinberg briefly served as Dean in 1984), in turn followed 1986-1988 by Joel R. Gat, and finally by Itamar Procaccia. In 1989, the Polymer Research Dept. was transferred from Biophysics to Chemistry, under Zvi Kam until June 1989, then under Jacob Klein from July 1989.

The next reorganization took place in 1990-1991, during the Presidency of Haim Harari. Scientists from a number of departments were combined in more homogenous groups with more closely related areas of interest. Itamar Procaccia carried on as Dean of the reorganized Faculty. He was succeeded in December 2000 by Lia Addadi, who was in turn succeeded in July 2004 by Mordechai (Mudi) Sheves. The present Dean, Yehiam Prior, took office on December 1, 2006, as Mudi Sheves became the new Vice-President for Technology Transfer of the Institute.

The five new departments (which exist in this form to this day) are:

An interdepartmental "chemical services" initiative existed in the Faculty of Chemistry since 1976, initially centered on NMR and mass spectrometry. Over time, offerings expanded to an increasingly broad array of chemical analysis tools and spectroscopic techniques. In 1980 the initiative was given independent status as the Chemical Services Unit, with Yigal Burstein serving as its first Head until 1988. From 1989 until 1994 Ron Naaman stood at the helm, followed by the decade-long tenure of Mordechai (Mudi) Sheves. Near the end of his watch, the Unit (currently comprising eleven different subunits) was renamed Chemical Research Support. The present Head of Chemical Research Support, Brian Berkowitz, took office in July 2004.
Sources:
  • Weizmann Institute Scientific Reports (published annually 1953-present)
  • Sylvia Flowers, "The history and development of the Weizmann Institute of Science", M.Phil. thesis, Dept. of History, U. of London, January 1975: in Wix Library collection under call number 506 FLO.
  • Informal personal interviews
  • WWW resources cited in the article

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Faculty of Chemistry, Weizmann Institute of Science
Comments and Suggestions to: Gershom Martin
Last Updated: Thursday, 08-Nov-2012 17:15:50 IST