Ephraim Katzir

Ephraim Katzir (born May 16, 1916, Kiev, Ukraine, Russian Empire [now in Ukraine]—died May 30, 2009, Reḥovot, Israel) was a Russian-born scientist and politician who was the fourth president of Israel (1973–78).

Katzir moved with his family to Palestine when he was nine years old. After graduating from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, he became an assistant in the university’s department of theoretical and macromolecular chemistry (1941–45). During this period he was also a research fellow at Columbia University in the United States and was active in the preindependence Jewish underground army, Haganah, to which he became scientific adviser. In 1949 he was appointed acting head of the department of biophysics in the Weizmann Institute of Science at Reḥovot, later becoming its director. A recognized authority on proteins, he was the first Israeli elected to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences (1966). From 1966 to 1968 he was chief scientific adviser to the Israeli Ministry of Defense.

Katzir was a member of the ruling Labour Party, and in 1973 he was elected president of Israel in a secret ballot of the Knesset (parliament). Although he had held no political office before, and despite the fact that his presidency bestowed no executive power, he did not remain silent on affairs of state. He attempted to close the wide gap that existed in education and social welfare between Sephardic and Oriental Jews and Ashkenazic Jews and to promote understanding between Israeli Jews and their Arab neighbours. After leaving office in 1978, Katzir returned to teaching and scientific research. In 2008 his autobiography, Sipur ḥayim (“A Life’s Tale”), was published.