Chaim Weizmann I. He founded the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel and was instrumental in the establishment of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Weizmann was born in the village of Motal, located in what is now Belarus and at that time part of the Russian Empire. He was the third of 15 children born to Oizer and Rachel Czemerinsky Weizmann. His father was a timber merchant. From ages four to eleven, he attended a traditional cheder, or Jewish religious elementary school, and he began studying Hebrew as a child. At the age of 11, he entered high school Pinsk, where
Chaim Weizmann fermentation. He used the bacterium Clostridium acetobutylicum (the "Weizmann organism") to produce acetone. Acetone was used in the manufacture of cordite explosive propellants critical to the Allied war effort (see Royal Navy Cordite Factory, Holton Heath). Weizmann transferred the rights to the manufacture of acetone to the Commercial Solvents Corporation in exchange for royalties. First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill became aware of the possible use of Weizmann's discovery in early 1915, and Minister of Munitions David Lloyd George joined Churchill in encouraging Weizmann's development of the process. Pilot plant development of laboratory procedures was completed in 1915 at