Haim Ernst Wertheimer (Hebrew: חיים ארנסט ורטהיימר; August 24, 1893 – March 23, 1978) was an Israeli biochemist.

Wertheimer was born in Bühl, Germany in 1893 and studied in his native town and in Baden-Baden. He commenced studying medicine in 1912, initially in Berlin, Bonn and Kiel, before his studies were interrupted by World War I, where he served in a medical capacity in Flanders and Italy, and was awarded the Iron Cross, second class, and other decorations. Following the war, he completed his medical studies in Heidelberg University.^[1]

In 1920–21 Wertheimer worked as a doctor at Berlin's municipal orphanage, and subsequently received a position at the Institute for Physiology, University of Halle.^[1]

With the Nazi rise to power in Germany Wertheimer lost his job. In 1934 he emigrated to Mandate Palestine and accepted a job as temporary director of the Laboratory of Chemistry, at Hadassah Medical School in the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He continued working at the Hadassah Medical Center until 1963,^[1] and served as dean of the institution in the '50s. Werthimer is regarded as the father of the field of fat metabolism.^[2]

• In 1956, Wertheimer was awarded the Israel Prize, for medicine.^[3]
• In 1964, he received the Solomon Bublick Award of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

• List of Israel Prize recipients
• Wertheimer