.jpg "David Ben-Gurion"){kind=small}
Golda Meir
Search results
David Ben-Gurion (/ b ɛ n ˈ ɡ ʊər i ə n / ben GOOR-ee-ən; Hebrew: דָּוִד בֶּן־גּוּרִיּוֹן [daˈvid ben ɡuʁˈjon] ⓘ; born David Grün; 16 October 1886 – 1 December 1973) was the primary national founder of the State of Israel as well as its first prime minister.
Jun 28, 2024 · David Ben-Gurion (born October 16, 1886, Płońsk, Poland, Russian Empire [now in Poland]—died December 1, 1973, Tel Aviv–Yafo, Israel) was a Zionist statesman and political leader, the first prime minister (1948–53, 1955–63) and defense minister (1948–53; 1955–63) of Israel.
Learn about the life and achievements of David Ben-Gurion, the founder and leader of Israel. Explore his Zionist activism, his role in the creation of the state, and his legacy.
David Ben-Gurion, orig. David Gruen, (born Oct. 16, 1886, Płońsk, Pol., Russian Empire—died Dec. 1, 1973, Tel Aviv–Yafo, Israel), First prime minister of Israel (1948–53, 1955–63).
- An Early Zionist
- Using Violence
- Conflict with Arabs
- Proposed Partition
- Hostility & Restraint
- Forced Expulsion?
- The Prime Minister
David Ben-Gurion (born Gruen) was born in Plonsk, in Russian Poland, and grew up in a family committed to the Zionist cause. He immigrated to Palestine in 1906 and worked as a laborer and watchman in the Jewish settlements of Rishon Letzion and Petah Tikvah. Almost immediately he took up positions of leadership in the socialist Zionist Poalei Tzion...
Beginning in the 1920s, Ben-Gurion led the Zionist labor movement’s struggle against the right-wing Revisionist party, led by Vladimir Jabotinsky. Ben-Gurion believed that the establishment of socialist workers’ hegemony was a crucial step in the attainment of Jewish independence. The arrival in the mid-1920s of tens of thousands of lower-middle cl...
Like most Israeli politicians, Ben-Gurion dealt intimately with the conflict between the Zionists and the Arab national movement in Palestine. Ben-Gurion first became aware of the potential for conflict with the Arabs during the 1920s. Initially he assumed that as the Arabs began to benefit from the economic growth stimulated by Jewish settlement a...
The clash with the Revisionists was renewed in 1937. In the wake of the Arab revolt, the British Peel Commission proposed the partition of Palestine between Jews and Arabs. The Jews were to receive the northern coastal plain and the Galilee and Britain would retain control of the Jerusalem enclave and a corridor to the coast. The Arabs would get th...
At the same time, conflict erupted on a different front. Beginning with the Arab revolt of 1936-39, and continuing with the struggle for the Jewish state in the 1940s, the Jewish community of Palestine was bitterly divided over the use of armed force. The position of Ben-Gurion and the Hagana–the official Jewish self-defense force–was that Arab hos...
Since the 1990s, post-Zionist “new historians” such as Ilan Pappe and Benny Morris have alleged that during the war Ben-Gurion was aware of–or even initiated–a policy of transfer, the forced expulsion of Arabs. These claims have been hotly contested by historians such as biographer Shabtai Teveth, who assert that Israel’s first prime minister was r...
Ben-Gurion’s tenure as prime minister (1948-53 and again from 1955-63) was governed by the principle of mamlachtiut, or statism–the belief that sectarian ideologies and interests must be replaced by loyalty to the state as a whole. Ben-Gurion set aliyahand immigrant absorption as Israel’s top priorities, established the Israel Defense Force, disper...
May 14, 2018 · Learn about the life and achievements of David Ben-Gurion, the political leader who founded and led Israel. Explore his Zionist activism, his role in the Suez Canal crisis and the Six-Day War, and his vision for a Jewish state.
David Ben-Gurion ( / bɛn ˈɡʊəriən / ben GOOR-ee-ən; Hebrew: דָּוִד בֶּן־גּוּרִיּוֹן [ daˈvid ben ɡuʁˈjon] ⓘ; born David Grün; 16 October 1886 – 1 December 1973) was the primary national founder of the State of Israel as well as its first prime minister.
