Emanuel Gil‐Av (Zimkin) was born in 1916 and passed away in 1996. The introduction of chemical selectivity into the chromatographic separation process constitutes his main scientific contribution. This approach culminated in the first enantiomeric separation of racemic amino acids by gas chromatography on an optically active chiral stationary phase in 1966, together with Binyamin Feibush and Rosita Charles‐Sigler. Thus the year 2016 marks an important date to remember and to appreciate the invaluable achievements of Gil‐Av in the realm of chirality carried out at the Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel.