Why is There No Presidents Day in Israel?

Perhaps the first question should be: “Why is there no Presidents Day in the U.S.?” Despite popular convention, the holiday that we will celebrate in the U.S. this week is officially Washington’s Birthday. In 1968, Robert McClory, a congressman from Illinois, proposed a Bill, which would consolidate Lincoln’s Birthday and Washington’s birthday into one federal holiday. The Bill never passed, but advertisers and some state legislatures have pushed the name “Presidents Day” as both more representative of all of our great presidents, and somehow easier to sell cars and appliances.

So is George Washington getting cheated out of his due notoriety? - certainly not any more that Chaim Weizmann, Israel’s first president. To be fair, Washington’s Birthday, as a federal holiday, was mandated into law in 1880; 68 years before the establishment of the State of Israel and even 17 years before the First Zionist Congress in Basel, Switzerland (which Weizmann actually missed due to travel delays). Washington has had his time in the sun, and even a face on Mount Rushmore. Weizmann has no holiday and his bust sits in his memorial home in Rehovot, and another in the Truman Library in Independence, MO.

Perhaps this is because the presidency in Israel and the United States are markedly different positions. The U.S. president is often referred to as “the leader of the free world” and wields an enormous amount of executive power within the U.S. republic system of democracy. In Israel, the presidency has mainly ceremonial powers, and is even prohibited to comment on matters that divide the public. To quote a more recent U.S. President, the Israeli President is surely a “uniter not, and not a divider.”

Yet oddly, these two men, who became the first presidents of their new countries, share some striking similarities. For one, each is better known for what is was they did before their presidency than what they did during it. Weizmann died only three years after assuming the presidency (in his second term in office), but he is widely credited with establishing the diplomatic relationships that made recognition of the State of Israel possible. Weizmann, a British citizen and noted scientist, was a tireless diplomat, who negotiated support for the Balfour Declaration, initiated the Faisal-Weizmann Agreement to establish relationships between Arabs and Jews in the region, and met with President Harry Truman to ensure the recognition of the State of Israel by the United States. Washington, was a clear presidential favorite in the election of 1789 due to his role as a General in the American Revolution. To this day, most Americans know more about his military role (and his cherry tree incident), than his presidential activities.

Both Washington and Weizmann were near-unanimous choices for the first presidency based on their perceived impartiality and diplomatic skills. Neither Washington nor Weizmann ran for president as part of a political party (in both cases, the only presidential candidates from either country to do so since). Weizmann’s only contestant was Joseph Klausner, a Revisionist Zionist and ally of Ze’ev Jabotinsky, deemed by most to be too polarizing for the position. The Knesset elected Weizmann president by a vote of 83-12 (15 no votes and 1 invalid vote). The runner-up to Washington’s election was John Adams who was not on the ballot as a challenger, but rather as a nominee for Vice President (in that election, the Vice President was determined by the second highest vote-getter).

Even their methods of election were very similar. Neither Weitzman nor Washington was elected directly by the population of their countries. In Israel, to this day as per the Basic Law: The President of the State (passed in 1964), the president is elected by simple majority of the Knesset and in the U.S. the president is still chosen by the Electoral College. In Washington’s day, there was no popular election to support the Electoral College’s choice for President; rather state legislatures determined how their votes would be cast. Every state supported Washington except New York, which was deadlocked and supported no candidacy.

Maybe in another 50 years, Weizmann will have his own day in Israel, but for now his place is in the streets. There is hardly a city or town in Israel that doesn’t have a Weizmann Street or Boulevard, where he is memorialized (and intersected) along with other great political and Zionist leaders. Until relatively recently, following the significant leadership and tragic murder of Prime Minister Yithak Rabin, Israel has chosen to remember its leaders through streets, squares, and bridges, rather than in time.