Maria Weizmann Maria Weizmann Maria Weizmann (; born 1893) was a sister of Israeli politician and scientist Chaim Weizmann (the first President of the State of Israel). She graduated from a university in Switzerland and worked as a doctor in Moscow from 1915. Maria Weizman and her husband V.M. Savitsky were long denied the right to emigrate from the Soviet Union by the authorities (see also refusenik). Her husband was arrested in 1949. On February 10, 1953 she was arrested in connection with the alleged Doctors' plot. Her case was handled by the GRU (as opposed to MGB as it was common),
Chaim Weizmann would be more support among politicians for the then-current offer in Uganda, called the British Uganda Programme. Following mainstream Zionist rejection of that proposal, Weizmann was credited later with persuading Balfour, by then the Foreign Secretary, for British support to establish a Jewish homeland in Palestine, the original Zionist aspiration. The story goes that Weizmann asked Balfour, "Would you give up London to live in Saskatchewan?" When Balfour replied that the British had always lived in London, Weizmann responded, "Yes, and we lived in Jerusalem when London was still a marsh." Nevertheless, this did not prevent naturalization as a British