David Ben-Gurion (1886–1973) was a Polish-born Israeli political leader. He was one of the principal founders of the modern state of Israel. Ben-Gurion became the first prime minister and the first minister of defense of Israel, posts he held 1948–53 and 1955–63.
Born in Płońsk, Czarist Russia, now Poland, Ben-Gurion received a traditional Jewish education and later became politically active in Zionist circles when a student at the University of Warsaw. He lived in Ottoman Palestine, Greece, Istanbul, and the United States before resettling in Palestine after World War I. An active Zionist, Ben-Gurion cooperated with the British in the struggle to create an independent Jewish state in Palestine.
During the Second World War, Ben-Gurion encouraged the Jewish population in Palestine to volunteer for the British Army but resisted British attempts to regulate Jewish immigration to Palestine. He authorized the sabotage activities of the Hebrew resistance and led the defensive effort in 1947–48. In 1947, he backed the United Nations’s partition of Palestine into Jewish and Arab lands.
When Ben-Gurion declared Israeli independence on 14-May-1948, 400,000 Palestinians become forced refugees and 400,000 more escaped from the additional territories conquered by Israel in the Arab-Israeli war, 1948–49.
Ben-Gurion led his socialist Mapai Party to victory in the first elections to the Knesset in February 1949. As prime minister, he introduced an immigration program that doubled Israel’s Jewish population within three years. Ben-Gurion also initiated a series of national development and led Israel through the Suez Crisis of 1956. He stepped down as prime minister in 1963 but remained active in public life until three years before his death.
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by David Ben-Gurion
Anyone who doesn’t believe in miracles is not a realist.
—David Ben-Gurion
Topics: Miracles
Without moral and intellectual independence, there is no anchor for national independence.
—David Ben-Gurion
Topics: Independence
In order to be a realist you must believe in miracles.
—David Ben-Gurion
Topics: Miracles, Faith, Belief
Anyone who believes you can’t change history has never tried to write his memoirs.
—David Ben-Gurion
Topics: History
This life as a simple citizen and laborer has its benefits not only for the person himself but perhaps also for his country. After all, there is room for only one Prime Minister, but for those who make the desert bloom there is room for hundreds, thousands and even millions. And the destiny of the state is in the hands of the many rather than of a single individual. There are times when an individual feels he should do those things which only can and should be done by the many.
—David Ben-Gurion
The past is our very being.
—David Ben-Gurion
Topics: Reflection
Israel has created a new image of the Jew in the world – the image of a working and an intellectual people, of a people that can fight with heroism.
—David Ben-Gurion
Courage is a special kind of knowledge: the knowledge of how to fear what ought to be feared and how not to fear what ought not to be feared.
—David Ben-Gurion
Topics: Fear, Bravery, Courage
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
Golda Meir Israeli Head of State
Ayn Rand Russian-born American Novelist
Leo Rosten American Humorist
Igor Stravinsky Russian-born American Composer
Vladimir Nabokov Russian-born American Novelist
Vladimir Horowitz Russian-born American Pianist
Bernard Berenson American Art Critic
Isaac Asimov American Novelist, Critic, Popular Scientist
Margaret Thatcher British Head of State
Indira Gandhi Indian Head of State