Weitzmann Institute

November 19th - Day 7

We started the day having breakfast with friends from Vancouver, Liora and Jonathan who have lived in Israel for many years and return regularly to visit their family who still live here. They took us to a lovely restaurant on the beach. It was so nice that Hilary and I returned to it later in the evening, walking south through Jaffa Port for about twenty minutes.

The Weitzmann Institute tour, arranged months ago, was definitely a highlight of our visit in Israel. We have a number of connections to the Institute. Hilary has been active in a local fundraising chapter for the Institute in recent years, and through this, we have met a number of researchers who have come to Vancouver. They gave fascinating presentations on work that spans multiple disciplines of science, from nanotechnology to water purification. But we have another, more personal connection as well. A dear elderly friend of ours, a Ph.D. mathematician, began work there during the earliest days of computing, at a time when computers filled the size of a room, and used huge arrays of vacuum tubes to perform calculations. With this in mind, and because both Hilary and I share a love for science, we were both excited to visit what has become one of the finest science research institutions in the world.

A tour group taking the easy way back along the seawall.

Breakfast in southern Jaffa with friends Leora and Jonathan

Paddler just off the beach in front of the restaurant

A welcome centre provided a high-tech introduction into the broad spectrum of advanced research that takes place here. Unique to research institutes in the world, once hired at Weitzmann, researchers are given the opportunity to pursue any topic they wish to study. The results, for such a small country have been phenomenal. 6 Nobel laureates, 3 Turing Award winners in computing, 55,000 research publications in peer reviewed science journals, averaging about 1400 publications per year. An indication of the quality of this work, Weitzmann research publications were cited by 33,000 other researchers around the world in 2016 alone.

Chaim Weitzmann, in the early days of his research.

WEIZAC, the first electronic computer ever built in Israel. An incredibly complex array of vacuum tubes and wires, it was buit in record time by Weitzman scientists, and was completed in 1955. We will verify this when we get home, but we believe our friend Carol, now 87 years old but still solving complex mathematical problems, helped to build this computer.

Massive solar research facilities, located here at the Weizmann Institute include among the most advanced laboratories in the world.

One of the early organic chemistry labs used by Chaim Weitzmann, and is still in use today.

One of the original buildings at the Weitzmann institute. The campus now has 18 departments and 274 advanced research laboratories, with 2,400 faculty and staff.

The Koffler Particle Accelerator at Weitzmann. Scientists from Weitzman have key roles in research underway at the newly created particle accelerator at CERN.

Our guide, Yael, told the story of Chaim Weitzmann, and his vision of the pursuit of excellence in science as a key towards building the state of Israel into a modern country.

Weitzmann's own science contributions led directly towards working with British and US politicians in negotiating the creation of the State of Israel.

In 1949, Weitzmann became the first President of Israel, a position he held until his death in 1952.

"Miracles sometimes occur, but one has to work terribly hard for them. "

- Chaim Weitzmann

Returning from Weitzmann, we left our apartment again for a walk through Old Jaffa to the ancient port. This, we discovered, opens out into a wide promenade that follows the beach for several kilometers. Our destination was the restaurant where we had breakfast earlier that day.

This photo, taken near the restaurant where we had dinner in Jaffa tonight, shows something that most people might not recognize unless they are very observant Jews.

It is a fine string, usually a fishing line, that forms the boundary of a local area where Jews live, and, in forming a boundary, denotes it as 'private' for those who are strictly observant during Shabbat.

The boundary is called an Eruv, which, if you click on this link, you can learn more about it. One like this exists in Vancouver and Richmond, and is carefully maintained by the orthodox Jewish community in these areas. Similar ones exist in Toronto, New York and elsewhere around the world.

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After a wonderful seafood paella dinner, we walked back to the apartment, with a brief stop for gelato ice cream in Old Jaffa, A lovely evening, completing a very full day.