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 Nobel Prize laureate Fritz Haber, but took over the directorship himself after Haber's death en route to Palestine. During World War II, he was an honorary adviser to the British Ministry of Supply and did research on synthetic rubber and high-octane gasoline. After the Second World War, a Jewish group called Nakam formulated several plans to kill Germans in revenge for the Holocaust. Nakam's leader Abba Kovner, a former Lithuanian partisan, testified that he had approached Weizmann (at that time, President of the World Zionist Organization) with plans for a mass poisoning and that Wiezmann had put him in touch