An Unlikely Threesome

An Unlikely Threesome

What do a lapsed Baptist, a member of the English landed gentry, and the inventor of synthetic acetate have in common?

WOULD YOU believe they were used by God to return the Jews to their land?

It all began in 1874 in the hamlet of Motol in what is today Belarus. Chaim Weizmann was born the third of fifteen children to Ezer Weizmann, who made a living cutting lumber and floating it down to the Baltic Sea. In spite of the family’s meager resources, the children were able to attend the Orthodox Jewish school in their village and then go on to advanced training. All but one of Chaim’s surviving siblings became either a scientist, a physician, a dentist, an engineer, or a teacher.

In 1900 Chaim received a Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of Fribourg and four years later became a professor of chemistry at the University of Manchester in England.

From childhood Weizmann had a passion for Zionism, the movement to reestablish a Jewish national state in Palestine. As a leading academic in England, he was able to use his position to meet the influential politicians of his day and to share with them his passion for Zionism.

Two of Weizmann’s converts to Zionism were leaders of Parliament, Arthur Balfour and David Lloyd George. Balfour was the last representative of England’s traditional landed class to lead England. Weizmann had a decisive discussion with Balfour in 1914, explaining that although the Jews were the main contributors to German culture, they had to hide their Jewishness to do so. This disclosure brought Balfour to tears and made him a committed supporter of Zionism.

David Lloyd George, a Welshman, was the grandson of a Baptist pastor. His father died when he was just one year old, leaving the family in dire poverty. His mother and her children were taken in and provided for by her brother, also a Baptist minister. David, however, lost his faith as a boy. As an adult and a leader of Parliament, he was infamous for his marital infidelity, having the same mistress for more than thirty years.

During World War I, Lloyd George, already a Zionist thanks to his contact with Weizmann, was put in charge first of the cabinet munitions portfolio and then of the whole war office. By 1916 England was facing a huge military logistic problem. It was running out of natural acetate, a crucial ingredient in the manufacture of munitions. Chaim Weizmann saved the day by quickly inventing a new process for extracting acetate from corn. The British would not run out of bullets!

Their gratitude for Weizmann’s discovery served the cause of Zionism well when, also in 1916, Lloyd George became prime minister and Balfour his foreign secretary. As the British army fought the Ottoman Empire for control of Palestine, the British government issued the Balfour Declaration on November 2, 1917, to rally Jewish support for its effort. The key paragraph read, “His Majesty’s Government views with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people . . . and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this object.”

The Balfour Declaration became the single most important document in the establishment of the state of Israel. In 1949 Chaim Weizmann became Israel’s first president.

God used Lloyd George, Balfour, and Weizmann to return the Jews to their land.

Reflection

Have you personally seen God accomplish his purposes through unbelievers? If so, what does that tell you about God? If God uses both believers and unbelievers to accomplish his purposes, think of what that implies regarding the range of requests that we can ask of him. Just as there are no limits to what God can do, there should be no limits to the scope of our prayers.

“Would I ever bring this nation to the point of birth and then not deliver it?” asks the Lord. “No! I would never keep this nation from being born,” says your God.

Isaiah 66:9