Zafra M. Lerman Credit:
Courtesy of Zafra Lerman
I was born in the British Mandate for Palestine in what is now Israel. My birth certificate says that my nationality is Palestinian. My bachelor’s, master’s, and PhD education were all in Israel; I married and had a son very young, and he attended all my graduation ceremonies. In my studies, I was lucky enough to show that the secondary isotope effect is temperature dependent, a new fact that led to many people researching this phenomenon. After finishing my PhD, I continued my research at Cornell and Northwestern Universities in the US and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH), Zurich. By then, I felt very strongly that science education is a human right that belongs to all.
Following that belief, I accepted an offer I could not refuse from a communication arts school in Chicago called Columbia College Chicago. The offer was for me to build, from scratch, a science institute. I received millions of dollars in grants for developing a method of teaching science through art, music, dance, and drama, which had proved extremely successful with underprivileged students around the world. During that time, I chaired the Subcommittee on Scientific Freedom and Human Rights of the Committee on International Activities (IAC) of the American Chemical Society. In this capacity, I went several times to the Soviet Union and met with scientist dissidents after midnight in dark alleys to bring materials back to the US to work on on their behalf and bring them scientific journals. These activities were illegal in the Soviet Union. On the advice of Nobel Peace Prize laureate and physicist Andrei Sakharov, I took a crash course in Russian to avoid using translators, making sure that nobody knew about my activities. I am very proud of the number of dissidents I helped to gain their freedom.
After Sept. 11, 2001, I convinced the subcommittee I chaired that we should concentrate our efforts in the Middle East. I suggested organizing a conference where scientists from all countries in the Middle East could come together under one roof for 5 days with several Nobel laureates to develop collaborations and friendships that could overcome the chasms of distrust and intolerance among nations. This period was the height of the Second Intifada taking place in Israel, the Gaza Strip, and the West Bank. The first reaction by everybody was that I must be crazy to suggest a conference like that. Bill Carroll, the chair of IAC at the time, and I brought the idea in front of the ACS Board, and silence fell in the room, but after a long discussion, the ACS Board approved the idea. In 2003, on the island of Malta, the first Malta Conference took place. My original idea was one conference, but the participants voted immediately that this initiative must continue. Ten conferences were held; 17 Nobel laureates participated, many of them several times; and 700 scientists are now in the network. The conference created a space to share research in poster sessions and workshops and hear from Nobel laureates. It has led to collaborations on topics including water, energy, and science education. The friendships that develop are as important as the scientific collaborations. At the end of the conference, it is amazing to see the tears in the eyes of many saying their goodbyes; the scene reminds you of a family reunion that came to an end. During the Israel-Hamas war, with the help of several participants, we succeeded in helping our Gaza participants and their families escape the Gaza Strip to safety.
Despite setbacks due to the Iran war and war between Israel and Hezbollah, Malta XI will take place in December. I hope that in the future, we will manage to create a critical mass of scientists that will start a chain reaction for peace.
Views expressed are those of the author and not necessarily those of C&EN or the American Chemical Society.
