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PARTISAN REVIEW
citrus-proud village, with its scientific orchards, is the place where
Avram's story-as I see it-expands into the dimension of tragedy.
The Sieff school had been founded by Chaim Weizmann, a national
hero.
It
was Weizmann who, in
I9 I
7,
persuaded Lord Balfour, the
British Foreign Secretary, to support the establishment of a Jewish
national home in Palestine. Weizmann was an eminent chemist whose
work had meant a great deal to Britain in the First World War. My
favorite thing about him is his reply to Balfour, who, in his memoirs,
claimed to have rewarded the chemist with the gift of a home for his
people. Weizmann responded, "History doesn't deal in Aladdin's
lamps." You'd think the man who penned that wry dictum would have
known the difference between visions and illusions.
Weizmann's vision in founding Sieff had been of a scientific institute
which would solve problems of hunger and disease in developing
nations. And the other man without whom Israel wouldn't exist, David
Ben-Gurion, spoiled that vision.
Ben-Gurion and Weizmann were enemies fighting on the same side.
They both wanted a Jewish state. They were both leading statesmen,
public figures, but about as alike as Sir Laurence Olivier and Muham–
mad Ali. They rubbed each other the wrong way, and where Weizmann
was chivalrous, Ben-Gurion could be mean. It was Weizmann who
swayed Truman into backing the Partition vote. You 'd think, wouldn't
you, that Weizmann's signature would be on Israel's declaration of
independence? No. Ben-Gurion said no, because at the time of the sign–
ing Weizmann was in New York-where he'd lobbied till the last sec–
ond although he was elderly, feeble, and nearly blind. Weizmann was
appointed Israel's first president, a figurehead job, flown back from the
States and installed at Sieff, now renamed, in his honor, the Weizmann
Institute. I saw a newsreel of the inauguration ceremony: sun beating
through a pavilion, Ben-Gurion rasping on and on at the podium, Weiz–
mann standing there. He had no political power left, and knew it. But
he had his Institute. Then the Science Corps arrived.
There were strange doings around the campus. Weizmann should
have heard only voices, birdsong, and the hum of intellectual endeavor;
he shouldn't have felt thuds through the bones of his old feet. He
shouldn't have had to stop, baffled, in front of the Institute's new build–
ing, where something very odd was scrambling in the gravel yard. It
looked like a child's toy, with scooter wheels and a motor. As he shuf–
fled toward it he heard cries of alarm, and shadowy men swooped down
on it and carried it off. He beckoned to no one in particular and asked,
