Chaim Weizmann as President of Israel. Chaim Weizmann and his family lived in Manchester for about 30 years (1904–1934), although they temporarily lived at 16 Addison Road in London during World War I. While in Britain, he was known by many as Charles Weizmann, a name under which he registered about 100 research patents. At the end of World War II, it was discovered that the SS had compiled a list in 1940 of over 2,800 people living in Britain, which included Weizmann, who were to have been immediately arrested after an invasion of Britain had the ultimately abandoned Operation Sea Lion
The Racah Institute of Physics before the opening of the Hebrew University, first steps towards physics research in Jerusalem were taken by Chaim Weizmann. Weizmann, the President of the Zionist Organisation, and the major figure in the planning and founding of the Hebrew University contacted Leonard Ornstein, the known physicist from Utrecht, the Netherlands, to prepare plans for physics research at the upcoming university. After the University was officially opened, he became the chairman of the physics group for several years, acting from his seat at Utrecht. In the year 1923, two years before its official opening, Albert Einstein gave a talk on Mount Scopus,