History of the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology was Ahad Ha-Am, the distinguished Zionist philosopher. Ahad Ha-Am was able to recruit Wissotsky’s son David to the Technikum plan, and a first contribution of 100,000 rubles was made. In 1908, the American philanthropist Jacob Schiff was visiting the "holy land". Schiff was affected by the poverty and destitution he found among many of the Jews of Palestine and was inspired by the idea of an institution that would provide technical training. Back in Europe, interest in the new Technikum was kept high. In 1909 Dr. Chaim Weizmann, who would later become President of the State of Israel, reported to
Chaim Weizmann with a chemist who arranged for a quantity of poison to be procured. According to the story, Kovner did not tell Weizmann of his intention to poison millions of Germans via their water supply, but only of the backup plan to poison SS members who were in allied POW camps. The lesser plan was put into operation in April 1946 at Stalag 13. Kovner's story was repeated in 1998 by another Nakam leader Yulik Harmatz. There is no independent evidence for the meeting and some historians doubt it. Kovner's biographer Dina Porat wrote that Weizmann was not in Palestine on