Dr. Weizmann heads the Zionist delegation at the Paris Peace Conference in Versailles, which tried to obtain international approval for the Balfour Declaration.
In January 1919, together with King Feisal, head of the Arab National Movement, Dr. Weizmann signs the "Feisal-Weizmann" agreement.
Dr. Weizmann heads the Zionist Commission for Palestine, a delegation that traveled to Palestine at the initiative of the British government with the aim of making recommendations regarding the settlement and development of the country. In a letter to his wife, Vera, he described what he was seeing, “The difference between what you can see today in the settlements, and what it was possible to see when I was first here eleven years ago, is astounding. Today, these settlements are filled with life. Real Jews are living here. They are no longer a legend; they are real!”
Dr. Weizmann becomes President of the British Zionist Federation, an organization that was established after Britain conquers Palestine from Ottoman rule. He conducts negotiations with the British government which end on November 2nd with the granting of the Balfour Declaration.
Dr. Weizmann and his wife Vera have their second child, Michael. While in London, Dr. Weizmann manages the British Admiralty’s laboratories. He begins a campaign, with the help of friends, to spread the idea of creating a Jewish national homeland in Palestine under British patronage.
Dr. Weizmann meets with Prime Minister Lloyd George and Foreign Secretary Balfour.
Dr. Weizmann invents a new method for producing acetone, a solution that was essential for the production of explosive materials.
He moves to London and is appointed as an advisor to the British Admiralty and Ministry of Munitions for the supply of acetone.
With the outbreak of World War I, Dr. Weizmann works to promote the idea of a Jewish national homeland in Palestine, which was under British patronage.
Dr. Weizmann receives British citizenship.
Dr. Weizmann and his wife Vera have their first child, Benjamin (Benjy). Dr. Weizmann becomes famous as a representative of Synthetic Zionism at the 8th Zionist Congress at The Hague.
Dr. Weizmann marries Vera Chatzman, whom he met in Switzerland, where she was studying medicine. He said, “Vera and I found our way to each other but slowly, partly because of the seven-year difference in our ages and in our positions, as I was a lecturer and she was a student, but primarily because of differences in our background and approach to life.”
That same year, Dr. Weizmann meets Arthur James Balfour, the former prime minister of the UK, and explains to him the Zionist idea. “He asked me, ‘Why are the Jews opposed to the Uganda Plan?’”
Dr. Weizmann moves to England and works as a researcher in the Chemistry Department at the University of Manchester.
