A philanthropic way of life

By Tamar Morad

In a shady spot on the grounds of the reinvented Clore Garden of Science, Dame Vivien Duffield DBE sits on a bench steps away from her favorite exhibit—the massive “Clore Man,” literally poised to be the Garden’s iconic centerpiece with its sprawling white metallic limbs, inflatable lungs, arteries, and voice box. She remarks that she knows just how her father, the late Sir Charles Clore, would feel if he were alive today.

“He’d love it. I think he’d be very proud. And he’d be delighted that we kept up the Clore name. He loved coming here. And he absolutely would have loved seeing what the Clore Garden has become, and how the Weizmann Institute has transformed.”

After a total reimagining and redesign of the space, the Clore Garden of Science opened to the public in July. The new outdoor, hands-on science museum on the Weizmann campus represents the culmination of “a few lifetimes of work,” says Dame Vivien, who first established the Clore Garden in 1998 and both offered her vision and a transformational gift for the redesign. At the time, the original opening represented the fruition of years of pioneering educational programming for youth, starting in the 1960s, spearheaded by physicist Dr. Moshe Rishpon, who became the Garden’s first director. The Garden quickly became a popular destination for school groups and families, and has served as a blueprint for other outdoor science museums around the world.

While rooted in the same concept of infusing children with the excitement and wonder of science through play, the modern iteration integrates new scientific concepts with fresh ways for the curious-minded to engage and delight. “I’m still reeling under the beauty of it,” says Vivien. “What I love about it is that it is both a playground and a learning experience at the same time. The exhibits will come and go as science and technology advance and there are new things to learn, but the Garden itself will remain and evolve.”

That statement can also be seen as a metaphor for the Clore family’s unique relationship with the Institute, and Israel, rooted in the Institute’s earliest days and unyielding across three generations: Sir Charles, Dame Vivien, and her daughter, Dr. Arabella Duffield, now Chair of Weizmann UK. Steadfast and responding to changing needs and priorities throughout the decades, the family has been a pillar of support for the Institute, and its fingerprint can be seen on nearly every corner of campus.

First established in 1965 by Sir Charles, the Clore Israel Foundation has funded countless nonprofits and programs that have enriched the lives of hundreds of thousands of children and adults from communities across Israel. Today, Dame Vivien and Arabella co-lead the family’s Israel philanthropy, with a great deal of their energy devoted to Weizmann, where they are active members of the Institute’s Executive Board and International Board. Dame Vivien was a Trustee of Weizmann UK for many years.

“We are delighted and deeply grateful that Arabella has continued the Clore legacy of leadership, following in her mother’s footsteps and her grandfather’s,” says Prof. Alon Chen, Weizmann Institute President. “Vivien’s vision and support has been critical to transforming the Institute into what it is today, and Arabella is leading a new approach to expanding our international impact, reach, and network. It’s a joy and a privilege to work with this mother-daughter power couple.”

Funding bright minds and novel ideas

In 1956, Sir Charles Clore came with his two children to stay at the Weizmann Institute for the first time. After several small donations, his first major gift in 1964 funded the construction of the Charles Clore International House, a dormitory for students; the uppermost floor was outfitted for the Clore family. The most recent gift, made in the wake of the October 7 Hamas attacks, is funding science education programming for children and families displaced because of the war. In between were many more.

Sir Charles Clore (right) reviewing plans for the Clore International House with Meyer Weisgal.

Under Dame Vivien’s guidance—and grounded in the belief that outstanding minds drive the best science—the Clore Israel Foundation established prestigious annual awards: for young scientists, for postdocs, and for doctoral students, which altogether have benefitted hundreds of recipients. Since its inception in 1999, the Sir Charles Clore Postdoctoral Fellowship has made grants to 250 fellows; the Clore Scholars Program, initiated in 1992, funds two PhD students per year, such that more than 60 have received the award to date.

The Sir Charles Clore Prize for Outstanding Appointment as Senior Scientist, established in 1991, serves as a highly reliable predictor of future career success, and it has touched the spectrum of fields at Weizmann—from neuroscience and environmental sciences to virology, particle physics and more. Just as one example, Prof. Noam Stern-Ginossar of the Department of Molecular Genetics, who won the prize in 2013, has made major strides in revealing the inner workings of viruses; in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, she revealed just how the SARS-CoV-2 virus hijacks host cells, leading to disease.

The Clore Center for Biological Physics played a pioneering role in ushering into biology a complex understanding of physics. Prof. Lucio Frydman, the longtime director of the Clore Institute for High-Field Magnetic Resonance Imaging and Spectroscopy, says that generous endowment has enabled major advancements in the MRI field.

“The contributions that the Clore Foundation has made to magnetic resonance research at the Weizmann Institute are transforming nearly all branches of science,” he says. That includes “advanced materials, cancer, energy and environmental issues, and understanding and preventing neurodegeneration and other diseases—while also providing the intellectual cradle in which a new generation of students are gaining the knowhow needed to make revolutions across all areas of science.”

As new challenges have arisen, the foundation has often taken the lead. In 2006, when Weizmann leadership recognized that despite the fact that half of all PhD graduates were women, very few were opting to do postdoctoral fellowships abroad—a key step in launching an academic career in science. The Clore Foundation became a founding donor of the Israel National Postdoctoral Award Program for Advancing Women in Science, which funds outstanding women PhD graduates during their postdoc studies abroad—supplementing a typically low postdoc salary from the host institution—and thus offers encouragement to take this personal and professional step. The program’s impact has been profound, both inspiring other Israeli universities and the government to launch similar funding incentives for women postdocs abroad—and ensuring a greater diversity of bright minds are leveraged for the benefit of Israeli science.

To date, the foundation has funded 40 Clore Fellows through this program—nearly a third of the approximately 150 recipients, the great majority of whom do attain tenure-track faculty positions in Israel.

“I wouldn’t be where I am today in my career if it weren’t for the Clore Foundation,” says Dr. Alexandra Tayar, a new scientist in the Department of Chemical and Biological Physics who studies how biological molecules assemble and function. As a postdoc in the US, Dr. Tayar received funding from the Clore Foundation through the women in science program, offering her a financial boost that enabled her to relocate with her family and an injection of self-confidence that came with the prestige of the award.

A tradition of leadership

Arabella Duffield says she finds “the intellectual capacity and incredible creativity” of young scientists like Dr. Tayar an inspiration for her involvement in Weizmann. A science lover from a young age, Arabella attended the Institute’s Bessie F. Lawrence International Summer Science Institute after graduating from high school. Weizmann, she says “has always been part of my DNA.”

She went on to receive her undergraduate degree in natural sciences at Christ’s College at the University of Cambridge. She received a PhD in public health and nutrition from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and has an MBA from the London Business School. Keen on seeing the world and helping the most destitute, she worked as a nutrition advisor and in other roles for the UN and other NGOs in Africa and Asia, including Save the Children (where she serves today as Vice Chair of its UK branch). She lived and worked in Ethiopia for three years.

“The most devastating thing is seeing a starving child, and it was gratifying to be able to use the medical and scientific knowhow at our disposal to return these children to health,” she says. “When you’re out there in the field, you realize how while policy and politics play a role, no solutions would be possible without science.”

Today, she dedicates her time and energy to philanthropy, with Weizmann a major focus. “I absolutely love everything about Weizmann—I think it represents everything that is great about Israel,” she says. As Chair of Weizmann UK, she transmits this idea to others to widen the circle of friends. “What’s different about talking about Weizmann to donors now as compared to the early years is that we can say that Weizmann is truly a world-class scientific institution—that supporting it isn’t only part of a nation-building effort but also building out the best science there is,” she says.

“With the war in the backdrop,” she adds, “science is a beacon of hope. It offers a positive future because it leads to discovery, and the means to that end is just as important: international collaborations that are part of the research process enable Israel to remain connected to and appreciated by the rest of the world.”

Rooted in history

Sir Charles Clore was a talented retail and property entrepreneur who owned the British Shoe Corporation, Selfridges department store, and the Clore Shipping Company, and he invested in real estate. Dame Vivien’s mother, Francine Halphen, was related to the Sassoon and the Rothschild families; she had been a heroine of the French resistance in World War II.

Sir Charles’ first of many trips to British Mandate Palestine (and then Israel) was fueled by curiosity about the place in which his friends Sir Isaac Wolfson and Lord Israel Sieff were becoming increasingly involved. In particular, he was affected by Lord Sieff’s support of Dr. Chaim Weizmann in laying the groundwork for the Balfour Declaration of 1917, and establishing the Daniel Sieff Research Institute in 1934 (which would be renamed the Weizmann Institute of Science in 1949).

Dame Vivien says that she recalls feeling “tremendous excitement” on her first trip to Israel, at age 11, in the 1950s. “It was the biggest event of my life.” With no direct flights to Israel at the time, they stopped in Paris, Rome, Athens, and Cyprus before arriving in Tel Aviv. When she stepped off the plane, her first sight was of “an amazing man with white hair flowing everywhere, jabbering to us as he went up the stairs of the plane to greet us.”

That man was Meyer Weisgal, the personal assistant of Dr. Weizmann and a driving force in the creation of the Weizmann Institute. Weisgal was there to escort Sir Charles and his two children, Vivien and Alan, to the Institute campus in Rehovot. The family stayed for two weeks at the home of renowned Israeli diplomat Abba Eban on campus—steps away from the Wolfson and Weisgal residences.

Sir Charles became a member of Weizmann’s Board of Governors, and their trips to Israel became more frequent. They spent many Jewish holidays on campus with the Sieff, Weisgal, and Wolfson families. Dame Vivien came to know the scientists and their families, including the late great scientists Prof. David Samuel, Prof. Leo Sachs, and Prof. Aharon Katzir. It was an exhilarating, powerful mix of researchers, philanthropists, and statesmen who spent many afternoon teas brainstorming Israel’s future. The campus’ grassy open spaces, and beyond that the rolling hills and orange groves, became the landscape of her formative years.

The city of Jerusalem became a major focus of the family’s giving, an outgrowth of Sir Charles’ close friendship with the city’s mayor Teddy Kollek. The Tower of David Museum is a major beneficiary of the foundation which recently funded its renewal.

“My father taught me philanthropy by example,” says Dame Vivien, who made her first charitable donation at age 21. Before his passing, in 1979 (she was 33 at the time), he conveyed his wish that the family foundation continue its role in strengthening Israel’s health and welfare; his wish for her to continue to nourish the connection to the Weizmann Institute went without saying. Her Israel giving outpaces her UK giving—that says a lot. 

1964, the Clore Duffield Foundation, which funds projects in the UK, came under Dame Vivien’s leadership after his passing. She has spread her giving widely, out of a philosophy of assisting across society; The Sunday Times recently labeled her “Britain’s most prolific and formidable cultural philanthropist.” The UK foundation has distributed funds to more than 1,400 charities working in the arts, education, social welfare, and health. That includes establishing the Clore Gallery in the Tate Britain Museum and rebuilding the Royal Opera House. She also established JW3, the Jewish community center in London, and Eureka! The National Children’s Museum in Halifax, and dozens of Clore Learning Spaces in theaters, museums, and heritage sites attract children across England and Scotland.

Moments of nostalgia

Dame Vivien’s recent visit to the renewed Clore Garden sparked a moment of nostalgia about her childhood spent on campus.

“It was another world. It was fascinating. And today, having just landed in Tel Aviv after not having been here for more than a year, I must say I felt a shock. It was a beautiful, clear day. I suppose that the emotions around the war were with me. I looked down. The transformation of Tel Aviv in my lifetime is unbelievable. The transformation of the country is also unbelievable. And then there is the Weizmann campus. What the Institute is today, as compared to then, is completely different, and it’s a microcosm of the utterly sensational transformation of the whole country.”

Today’s debates surrounding the war don’t deter her. “I’m an expert at redirecting the focus of the conversation to the Weizmann Institute—because it is something anyone, Jew or non-Jew, should be able to appreciate,” she says. “I remind people of the Israeli contribution to computer chips, cell phones, instant messaging, drugs and treatments of all kinds. This opens their eyes, and those constant reminders of what Israel is to the world are more important than ever now.”

Dame Vivien at the inauguration of the Clore Prize, 1981.

Arabella has two boys—Daniel and Alexander—who have visited the Institute and “already feel connected,” she says. “I’m thinking about the fourth generation of Clores with a strong connection to Weizmann, and about the next generation in general. Our job as Weizmann friends and lay leaders is to always have top of mind how we continue to nurture the connection between future generations and the Institute, for mutual benefit and the benefit of science, for years to come.”

REBIRTH OF A VIBRANT PLAYSCAPE

The newly transformed Clore Garden of Science has re-opened its doors to the public. Following a massive renovation—made possible by a visionary gift from the Clore Israel Foundation and spearheaded by Dame Vivien Duffield DBE of the UK—it represents the future of interactive science and learning, showcasing a user-centric design that includes an indoor science center and an outdoor science park.

Each element of the new Clore Garden invites visitors to explore and engage with the natural world, providing unique insights into a vast array of scientific principles. As they step into the grounds, the first area visitors encounter is the Ilene and Philip Garoon Family Legacy Square. Generously supported by Howard Garoon of Illinois, one of the earliest donors to the original Clore Garden, this outdoor courtyard includes some of the Garden’s most timeless and beloved exhibits, highlighting the evolution of this educational complex—from its early days to its transformation into an ultra-modern science museum.

The spacious indoor science center is home to innovative research labs, exhibition spaces, and hands-on learning environments. Whether exploring the chemistry of cooking in the Culinary Lab, experimenting at the intersection of science and technology in the Multimedia Lab, or building their own inventions in the Makers Lab, visitors are treated to a singular experience that blends science, pedagogy, and recreation.

The outdoor science park, which officially opened this summer, is divided into stations, each devoted to a different element of nature—from light and movement to earth and matter. For example, a giant kaleidoscope illustrates how light interacts with a myriad of materials to create stunning visual effects, while the imposing human body sculpture takes visitors through the many systems and functions of living organisms.

Adjacent to these outdoor spaces is the Terri, Jerry, Karyn, and Matthew Kohl Amphitheater, generously supported by Terri and Jerry Kohl of California. Designed as a gigantic periodic table, this 250 -seat amphitheater hosts school groups, special events, and public presentations in a fun and educational setting that is truly one of a kind.

The new Clore Garden of Science, a beacon of interactive learning in Israel, offers a vibrant playscape for children and educators from every sector of society, where abstract concepts turn into tangible experiences, and visitors of all ages can spark a passion for science.