Efraim Katchalski (later Katzir) was the son of Yudel-Gersh (Yehuda) and Tzilya Katchalski,[1]inKiev, in the Russian Empire (today in Ukraine). In 1925 (several publications cite 1922[3]), he immigratedtoMandatory Palestine with his family and settled in Jerusalem. In 1932, he graduated from Gymnasia Rehavia.[4] A fellow classmate, Shulamit Laskov, remembers him as the "shining star" of the grade level. He was “an especially tall young man, a little pudgy, whose goodness of heart was splashed across his smiling face.” He excelled in all areas, “even in drawing and in gymnastics, where he was no slouch. He was the first in the class in arithmetic, and later on in mathematics. No one came close to him.”[5]
Like his elder brother, Aharon, Katzir was interested in science. He studied botany, zoology, chemistry and bacteriology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. In 1938 he received an MSc, and in 1941 he received a PhD degree.[4] In 1939, he graduated from the first Haganah officers' course, and became commander of the student unit in the field forces (Hish).
He and his brother worked on the development of new methods of warfare. In late 1947, after the outbreak of the 1948 Palestine war, and in anticipation of the War for Israel’s Independence, Katzir met the biochemist David Rittenberg, then working at Columbia University, stating:’ ‘I need germs and poisons for the [impending/ongoing Israeli] war of independence,’ Rittenberg referred the matter to Chaim Weizmann. Weizmann initially dismissed the request, branding Katzir a ‘savage’ and requested his dismissal from the Sieff Scientific Institute in Rehovot, but weeks later he relented, and his dismissal was rescinded. Shortly afterwards, in March 1948, his brother Aharon, who decades later was one of the victims of the Lod Airport Massacre, was appointed director of a research unit, HEMED, in Mandatory Palestine involving biological warfare. A decision to use such material against Palestinians was then taken in early April.[6] In May Ben-Gurion appointed Ephraim to replace his brother as director of HEMED, given his success abroad in procuring biological warfare materials and equipment to produce them.[7]
Katzir was married to Nina (née Gottlieb), born in Poland, who died in 1986. As an English teacher, Nina developed a unique method for teaching language. As the president's wife, she introduced the custom of inviting the authors of children's books and their young readers to the President's Residence. She established the Nurit Katzir Jerusalem Theater Center in 1978 in memory of their deceased daughter, Nurit, who died from accidental carbon monoxide exposure. Another daughter, Irit, killed herself.[8] They had a son, Meir, and three grandchildren. Katzir died on 30 May 2009 at his home in Rehovot.[4][9]
[edit]President Katzir meeting with Bedouin sheikhs
In 1973, Golda Meir contacted Katzir at Harvard University, asking him to accept the presidency. He hebraicized his family name to Katzir, which means 'harvest'.
On 10 March 1973, Katzir was elected by the Knesset to serve as the fourth President of Israel. He received 66 votes to 41 cast in favour of his opponent Ephraim Urbach and he assumed office on 24 May 1973. During his appointment, UN approved resolution 3379 which condemned "Zionism as Racism". He was involved in the dispute between Mexico (where the resolution was initially promoted during the World Conference on Women, 1975) and the US Jewish community because of a touristic boycott directed from the latter to that country.[10]
In November 1977, he hosted President Anwar SadatofEgypt in the first ever official visit of an Arab head of state. In 1978, he declined to stand for a second term due to his wife's illness,[9] and was succeeded by Yitzhak Navon. After stepping down as President, he returned to his scientific work.
^Benny Morris, Benjamin Z. Kedar, ‘Cast thy bread’: Israeli biological warfare during the 1948 WarMiddle Eastern Studies 19 September 2022, pages =1-25 p.9:'A major shift in modus operandi and personnel occurred after the return of Ephraim Katchalsky from New York, via Europe, to Palestine.82 On 13 May Ben-Gurion jotted down in his diary:‘Ephraim has come’, and then went on to list the scientist’s expenditure on chemicals and sniper-scopes (due to arrive by boat), four radar systems (still in the United States), and ‘biological materials’ that Katchalsky bought for $2,000 and most probably carried with him. Ben-Gurion decided that Ephraim should stay in the country and replace his brother Aharon as overall commander of HEMED.83 Evidently Ephraim’s efforts to obtain ‘germs and poisons’, or at least equipment to facilitate their weaponization, met with success, and we may assume that the ‘biological materials’ he acquired boosted the capabilities of HEMED B. (It is significant that the editors of the printed version of Ben Gurion’s war diary – Gershon Rivlin and Elhanan Oren – chose to delete the words ‘Biological materials $2000’ from the entry for that day.)8.'
