David Ben-Gurion

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Lore & Background

David Ben-Gurion was born in Płońsk in Congress Poland—then part of the Russian Empire—to Polish Jewish parents. His father, Avigdor Grün, was a court scribe and unofficial legal adviser. Following Theodor Herzl's *Der Judenstaat* in 1896, Avigdor co-founded a Zionist group called Beni Zion—Children of Zion, which had 200 members by 1900. David was the youngest of three boys, with an older and younger sister. His mother, Scheindel (Broitman), died of sepsis after a stillbirth in 1897, her eleventh pregnancy. His birth certificate, found in Poland in 2003, indicated he had a twin brother who died shortly after birth. Between ages five and 13, Ben-Gurion attended five different heders plus compulsory Russian classes; two heders were 'modern' and taught in Hebrew. His formal education ended after his bar mitzvah. At 14, he and two friends formed a youth club, Ezra, promoting Hebrew studies and emigration to the Holy Land. One biographer writes Ezra had 150 members within a year; another source estimates 'several dozen.' In 1904 he moved to Warsaw, but lacked qualifications to enroll in the Warsaw Mechanical-Technical School, so he taught Hebrew in a heder. Inspired by Tolstoy, he became a vegetarian. In October 1905 he joined the clandestine Poalei Zion. During the 1905 Russian Revolution, he was arrested twice—the second time held for two weeks, released with his father's help. By December 1905 he was a full-time Poalei Zion operative in Płońsk, opposing the anti-Zionist Bund and organizing a garment workers' strike. He was known to use intimidatory tactics, such as extorting money from wealthy Jews at gunpoint to raise funds for Jewish workers. In autumn 1906 he left for Palestine with his sweetheart Rachel Nelkin, her mother, and comrade Shlomo Zemach, funded by his father. Landing in Jaffa on 7 September 1906, he walked to Petah Tikva, the largest of 13 Jewish agricultural settlements, with 80 households and nearly 1,500 people—around 200 were Second Aliyah pioneers. He worked as a day laborer, but found it difficult competing with local villagers. In November he caught malaria; the doctor advised he return to Europe. By summer 1907 he had worked an average 10 days a month, often with no money for food. At the founding conference of the Jewish Social Democratic Workers' Party in the Land of Israel (4–6 October 1906), Ben-Gurion was elected to the five-man Central Committee and the 10-man Manifesto Committee, and chosen as chairman. He conducted sessions in Hebrew, forbidding translation into Russian or Yiddish. The conference produced the Ramleh Programme, stating 'the party aspires to political independence of the Jewish People in this country.' All activities were to be in Hebrew, with segregation of Jewish and Arab economies and a Jewish trade union. Ben-Gurion and Israel Shochat continued meeting weekly; Ben-Gurion helped establish three small trade unions among tailors, carpenters, and shoemakers, and set up the Jaffa Professional Trade Union Alliance with 75 members.

Reader's Guide

David Ben-Gurion's significance lies in his central role as the primary national founder and first prime minister of the State of Israel. As head of the Jewish Agency from 1935, and later president of the Jewish Agency Executive, he was the de facto leader of the Jewish community in Palestine and largely led the movement for an independent Jewish state in Mandatory Palestine. On 14 May 1948, he formally proclaimed the establishment of Israel and was the first to sign the Israeli Declaration of Independence, which he had helped to write. Under his leadership, the 1948 Arab–Israeli War saw the uniting of the various Jewish militias into the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), the victory of Israel over the Arab League, and the expulsion and flight of a majority of the Palestinian Arab population. He subsequently became known as 'Israel's founding father.' As prime minister and minister of defence, he helped build state institutions, presided over national projects, and oversaw the absorption of Jewish immigrants. A major part of his foreign policy was improving relations with West Germany through a reparations agreement in compensation for Nazi confiscation of Jewish property during the Holocaust. In 1954, he resigned as prime minister and minister of defence but remained a member of the Knesset. He returned as minister of defence in 1955 after the Lavon Affair and the resignation of Pinhas Lavon, and later that year became prime minister again after the 1955 elections. He backed Israel's reprisal operations to Arab guerrilla attacks and its invasion of Egypt, along with Britain and France, during the Suez Crisis in 1956. He stepped down from office in 1963, and retired from political life in 1970, moving to his modest 'hut' in Sde Boker, a kibbutz in the Negev desert, where he lived until his death. Posthumously, Ben-Gurion was named one of *Time* magazine's 100 Most Important People of the 20th century.

Did You Know?

• Ben-Gurion's birth certificate, found in Poland in 2003, indicated he had a twin brother who died shortly after birth.
• His mother, Scheindel (Broitman), died of sepsis following a stillbirth in 1897—her eleventh pregnancy.
• At age 14, he and two friends formed a youth club called Ezra, promoting Hebrew studies and emigration to the Holy Land; one biographer says it had 150 members within a year.
• In Płońsk, he was known to use intimidatory tactics, such as extorting money from wealthy Jews at gunpoint to raise funds for Jewish workers.
• He was named one of *Time* magazine's 100 Most Important People of the 20th century.