The Gap explained
One of the criticisms of my autobiographical novel "Amanuensis" is that there is a big gap that remains unexplained, how did we get from Cambridge in Chapter 10 to Israel in Chapter 11?
I did write a long chapter describing our first visit to Israel in 1963 that I entitled "The Grand Tour." However, I found that it distracted from the main theme/plot of the novel and so I removed it, and it appears in my book "Trove" as one of eight long stories (or novellas). I have never told the actual story of how we actually came to be in Israel for two years in 1964-6 when I was a post-doctoral fellow at the Weizmann Institute as mentioned in Chapter 11. So I thought that I would tell it here. It came about because of a mistake!
Since I was due to graduate in 1964, one main reason why we went on the trip to Israel in 1963 was for me to have an interview with Prof. David Elson, the Head of the Biochemistry Department at the Weizmann. He was working on ribosomes, the cellular organelles where protein synthesis occurs (ribosomes were known to be complexes of ribonucleic acid (RNA) and proteins, but their structure would not be solved for many years, specifically with the use of X-ray crystallography, for which Ada Yonath received a Nobel Prize last year). I was particularly interested in working on ribosomes and Elson gave me a project of looking for any possible covalent chemical links between the protein and RNA components, since there was some Russian literature suggesting this. I subsequently received a letter from him offering me a post-doctoral place in his laboratory, if I could find a fellowship that would pay my salary.
I applied to various places for a fellowship as was customary, and one favorite place was the NATO Fellowship program. However, I made a mistake, I somehow did not realize that these fellowships were only for NATO countries, that did not include Israel. I received a letter back from them asking me to come in for an interview in London, but pointing out that Israel was not a NATO country and perhaps I would like to change my choice. At the interview there were three Professors, one of whom I remember was a Botany Professor who was Jewish. They, of course, asked me why I had chosen Israel? I said that I was a Jew and that I wanted to experience living there, and this would be a great opportunity, particularly since the Weizmann Inst. was up to international standards and I was particularly interested in working on ribosomes. Apparently I was persuasive, because after the interview the three Professors came and shook my hand and told me informally that I had got the Fellowship. So I became the first NATO Fellow in Israel.
Our daughter Miriam was born in 1964 in London Hospital (mentioned in the book, although her name was changed for obvious reasons), and when she was a month old we flew together to Israel. I spent two years in mostly fruitless work at the Weizmann, things did not turn out as well as expected, I found no evidence for any covalent links between the RNA and proteins and the project was a bust. Since I had my own fellowship I transferred to the Isotope Department to do other work, where it was a case of "sink or swim." Now that you know the story of how we came to be in Israel, maybe you understand why I chose not to include the explanation in the book.
We left Israel in 1966 and I moved to a Fellowship at Harvard Medical School in Boston, and my first experience on arriving there is described in my other book of short stories "Discovering America."
Note: These books are available on Amazon.com, search for "(title) Jack Cohen"
I did write a long chapter describing our first visit to Israel in 1963 that I entitled "The Grand Tour." However, I found that it distracted from the main theme/plot of the novel and so I removed it, and it appears in my book "Trove" as one of eight long stories (or novellas). I have never told the actual story of how we actually came to be in Israel for two years in 1964-6 when I was a post-doctoral fellow at the Weizmann Institute as mentioned in Chapter 11. So I thought that I would tell it here. It came about because of a mistake!
Since I was due to graduate in 1964, one main reason why we went on the trip to Israel in 1963 was for me to have an interview with Prof. David Elson, the Head of the Biochemistry Department at the Weizmann. He was working on ribosomes, the cellular organelles where protein synthesis occurs (ribosomes were known to be complexes of ribonucleic acid (RNA) and proteins, but their structure would not be solved for many years, specifically with the use of X-ray crystallography, for which Ada Yonath received a Nobel Prize last year). I was particularly interested in working on ribosomes and Elson gave me a project of looking for any possible covalent chemical links between the protein and RNA components, since there was some Russian literature suggesting this. I subsequently received a letter from him offering me a post-doctoral place in his laboratory, if I could find a fellowship that would pay my salary.
I applied to various places for a fellowship as was customary, and one favorite place was the NATO Fellowship program. However, I made a mistake, I somehow did not realize that these fellowships were only for NATO countries, that did not include Israel. I received a letter back from them asking me to come in for an interview in London, but pointing out that Israel was not a NATO country and perhaps I would like to change my choice. At the interview there were three Professors, one of whom I remember was a Botany Professor who was Jewish. They, of course, asked me why I had chosen Israel? I said that I was a Jew and that I wanted to experience living there, and this would be a great opportunity, particularly since the Weizmann Inst. was up to international standards and I was particularly interested in working on ribosomes. Apparently I was persuasive, because after the interview the three Professors came and shook my hand and told me informally that I had got the Fellowship. So I became the first NATO Fellow in Israel.
Our daughter Miriam was born in 1964 in London Hospital (mentioned in the book, although her name was changed for obvious reasons), and when she was a month old we flew together to Israel. I spent two years in mostly fruitless work at the Weizmann, things did not turn out as well as expected, I found no evidence for any covalent links between the RNA and proteins and the project was a bust. Since I had my own fellowship I transferred to the Isotope Department to do other work, where it was a case of "sink or swim." Now that you know the story of how we came to be in Israel, maybe you understand why I chose not to include the explanation in the book.
We left Israel in 1966 and I moved to a Fellowship at Harvard Medical School in Boston, and my first experience on arriving there is described in my other book of short stories "Discovering America."
Note: These books are available on Amazon.com, search for "(title) Jack Cohen"
posted by Jack Cohen at 5:54 AM
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