Chaim Weizmann, First President of Israel, Powerfully Expresses the Grit and Determination That Has Led to the Return of Jews to and Building of the State Israel: “Let them come, toil, and raise the redemption of the Nation and the State of Israel”

When the Assyrians conquered Israel in 722, the Hebrew inhabitants were scattered all over the Middle East; these early victims of the dispersion disappeared utterly from the pages of history. However, when Nebuchadnezzar deported the Judaeans in 597 and 586 BC, he allowed them to remain in a unified community in Babylon. Another group of Judaeans fled to Egypt, where they settled in the Nile delta. So from 597 onwards, there were three distinct groups of Hebrews: a group in Babylon and other parts of the Middle East, a group in Judaea, and another group in Egypt. Thus, 597 is considered the beginning date of the Jewish Diaspora. While Cyrus the Persian allowed the Judaeans to return to their homeland in 538 BC, most chose to remain in Babylon. All of these Jews retained their religion, identity, and social customs.

In 63 BC, Judaea became a protectorate of Rome. Coming under the administration of a governor, Judaea was allowed a king; the governor’s business was to regulate trade and maximize tax revenue. Even with a Jewish king, the Judaeans revolted in 70 AD, a desperate revolt that ended tragically. In 73 AD, the last of the revolutionaries were holed up in a mountain fort called Masada; the Romans had besieged the fort for two years, and the 1,000 men, women, and children inside were beginning to starve. In desperation, the Jewish revolutionaries killed themselves rather than surrender to the Romans. The Romans then destroyed Jerusalem, annexed Judaea as a Roman province, and systematically drove the Jews from Palestine. After 73 AD, Hebrew history would only be the history of the Diaspora as the Jews and their world view spread over Africa, Asia, and Europe.

The creation of the state of Israel changed everything. Early in 1948, though divested of formal office, Chaim Weizmann went to Washington for crucial talks with Pres. Harry Truman. On May 14, 1948, David Ben-Gurion, the head of the Jewish Agency, proclaimed the establishment of the State of Israel. U.S. President Harry S. Truman recognized the new nation on the same day. For the first time in nearly 2 millenia, Jews, who had been systematically persecuted and who were subject of attempted extermination during the Holocaust, had a place where they could go to live in a religious state devoted to the preservation of Judaism. Creating this state required help from returning Jews. This is the Aliyah, the opposite of the diaspora, the immigration of Jews from the diaspora to the Land of Israel.

Chaim Weizmann was the first President of Israel. He was born in 1874 in a traditional Jewish home in the village of Motal, at the Western edge of the Russian Empire. He was the third of fifteen children of Rachel Leah and Oizer Weizmann. His father was known as a learned man and an industrious merchant. His parents insisted that the children receive both a Jewish education and a broad general education. Throughout his life, Chaim Weizmann was deeply connected to his siblings and their children. Ten of the eleven siblings who reached adulthood made Aliyah. With the establishment of the State, while still in the U.S., Weizmann was appointed President of the Provisional State Council of Israel. In February, 1949, after the first Knesset had been established, Weizmann was elected as first President of the State of Israel.

Typed letter signed, December 14, 1950, to Moshe Sharet, the Foreign Minister. “Dear Friend, Knowing the situation of the diaspora of the surviving Jewish nation, to the best of my assessment, the only large source of potential Aliya is the South American Jewry. The order of the day is to raise a youth movement that is desirous to fulfill an historical mission in the life of the Hebrew Nation without questions or conditions. Let them come, toil, and raise the redemption of the Nation and the State of Israel. With admiration for your work – to Zionism and to the Nation.” Signed Dr. Ch. Weitzmann, President of Israel.