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 non-interventionist position. Weizmann consulted several times with Samuel on the homeland policy during 1915, but H. H. Asquith, then Prime Minister, would be dead set against upsetting the balance of power on the Middle East. Attitudes were changing to "dithyrambic" opposition; but in the Cabinet, to the Samuel Memorandum, it remained implacably opposed with the exception of Lloyd George, an outspoken radical. Edwin Montagu, for example, Samuel's cousin was strenuously opposed. Weizmann did not attend the meeting of Jewry's ruling Conjoint Committee when it met the Zionist leadership on 14 April 1915. Yehiel Tschlenow had travelled from Berlin to speak