Prof. Aharon Katzir

ביטוח לאומי - דף הנצחה

Aharon Katzir (Aharon Katzir-Katchalsky) (Hebrew: אהרן קציר‎) (1914 – 30 May 1972) was an Israeli pioneer in the study of the electrochemistry of biopolymers. He was killed in the Lod Airport Massacre in 1972.Born 1914 in Łódź, Poland, he moved to Palestine in 1925, where he taught at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. There, he adopted his Hebrew surname Katzir.

He was murdered in a terrorist attack at Ben Gurion International Airport in 1972 in which 26 people were killed and 80 injured. His younger brother, Ephraim Katzir, became the President of Israel in 1973.

Awards and commemoration:

• In 1961, Katzir was awarded the Israel Prize, in life sciences, together with his pupil, Ora Kedem.
• The State of Israel issued a postage stamp in memory of Katzir.
• The crater Katchalsky on the Moon is named after him.
• A series of Hebrew lectures is held at Tel Aviv University in memory of Katzir, organized by his son Avrahm, a professor of physics. It is named In the Crucible of the Revolution (BeKur HaMahapecha), alluding to a popular book Katzir wrote about scientific progress. It has featured lectures by Nobel Prize laureates Daniel Kahneman and Aaron Ciechanover, and renowned philosopher Hilary Putnam.
• A center at the Weizmann Institute of Science is named after Katzir.
• A scholarship program of the Israeli Ministry of Defense is also named after him.
• In 2005, he was voted the 177th-greatest Israeli of all time, in a poll by the Israeli news website Ynet to determine whom the general public considered the 200 Greatest Israelis.

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Aharon Katchalsky-Katzir was born in 1913 in Lodz, Poland. His family emigrated to Jerusalem in 1922, where he studied in the Hebrew Gymnasium. In 1932 Katzir-Katchalsky began his studies at Hebrew University and published a book "Sons of the Sun", about butterflies in Israel. After serving in the Haganah, he completed his Ph. D. in Chemistry Summa Cum Laude.

In 1948 he was invited by Chaim Weizmann to join the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot as head of the Department of Polymer Research, and in 1952 became a professor of physical chemistry at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. His areas of interest included the use of polyelectrolytes as models for macromolecular substances in the living organism, membranes, and network thermodynamics. Aharon Katzir was a pioneer in the study of the electrochemistry of biopolymers. He received the Israel Prize in 1961 and was president of the Israel Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1962-1968. His lectures and writings were very popular.

Professor Aharon Katzir was killed on May 30, 1972, by a Japanese terrorist at Ben-Gurion Airport.