Vera Weizmann Vera Weizmann Vera Weizmann (; November 27, 1881 – September 24, 1966), wife of Chaim Weizmann, the first president of the State of Israel, was a medical doctor and a Zionist activist. Vera Chatzman was born in the town of Rostov, in the Russian Empire, the daughter of Isaiah and Feodosia Chatzman. She initially studied music before taking up medical training in Geneva, Switzerland. There she met Chaim Weizmann at the University's Zionist Club. In 1906 she married Weizmann at Zoppot, Prussia, today called Sopot, in Poland, and later that year they settled in Manchester, England. There they had two
Chaim Weizmann against "repressive cruelty" to the Arabs. He regularly travelled by train to London to discuss spiritual and cultural Zionism with writers like Ginzberg whose pen name was Ahad Ha'am. He stayed at Ginzberg's home in Hampstead, whence he lobbied Whitehall, beyond his job as Director of the Admiralty for Manchester. Zionists believed that anti-Semitism led directly to the need for a Jewish homeland in Palestine. Weizmann first visited Jerusalem in 1907, and while there, he helped organize the Palestine Land Development Company as a practical means of pursuing the Zionist dream, and to found the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Although