Nietzschean Zionism Although Buber did believe that to truly grow fond of Nietzsche one must desert him. Chaim Weizmann, leader of the Zionist movement and future first president of the State of Israel, was influenced by the writings of Friedrich Nietzsche. Weizmann believed that the Jews lacked power, and in Zionism he saw a phenomena that would steer the Jews toward power and freeing themselves. Whether Weizmann’s intention was conscious or not, it relates to Nietzsche’s idea of Übermensch. Although Weizmann did believe the Jews contained sufficient intellect to understand and incorporate the writings of Nietzsche into their lives. Weizmann believed this
Chaim Weizmann personal foibles were representative of class consciousness, which the Zionists overcome through deeds rather than words. C. P. Scott, the editor of "The Manchester Guardian", formed a friendship with Weizmann after the two men encountered each other at a Manchester garden party in 1915. Scott described the diminutive leader as extraordinarily interesting, a rare combination of idealism and the severely practical which are the two essentials of statesmanship a perfectly clear sense conception of jewish nationalism, an intense and burning sense of the Jew as Jew, just as strong, perhaps more so, as that of the German as German or