Index: > A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
Business Industries Finance Tax

Home > David Ben-Gurion


First Prev [ 1 2 3 ] Next Last

David Ben-Gurion ( October 16, 1886December 1, 1973; Hebrew: דוד בן גוריון) was the first Prime Minister of Israel.

1 Early life

He was born as David Gruen in Plonsk, Poland which was then part of the Russian Empire. Shocked by the pogroms and rampant anti-Semitism that plagued Jewish life in Eastern Europe, he became an ardent Zionist and socialist and moved to Palestine in 1906.

He first worked as a journalist and adopted his Hebrew name Ben-Gurion as he began his political career. He was expelled from Palestine, then under the rule of the Ottoman EmpireOsmanlı İmparatorluğu Devlet-i Aliye-i Osmaniye The Ottoman Coat of Arms Imperial motto: unknown The Ottoman Empire at the height of its power Official language Ottoman Turkish Capital İstanbul ( Constantinople) Sovereigns Sultans, in 1915Events January 12 The Rocky Mountain National Park is established by an act of Congress. January 12 United States House of Representatives rejects proposal to give women the right to vote. January 13 An earthquake (6. 8 in Richter scale) in Avezzano, Ital due to his political activities.

Settling in New York CitySkyline, with Statue of Liberty New York, New York" redirects here. For alternate meanings, see New York, New York (disambiguation). New York — officially named City of New York and often called New York City to distinguish it from the state of New York, in 1915Events January 12 The Rocky Mountain National Park is established by an act of Congress. January 12 United States House of Representatives rejects proposal to give women the right to vote. January 13 An earthquake (6. 8 in Richter scale) in Avezzano, Ital he met his future Russian-born wife, Puala MunweisPaula (Munweis or Monbesz) Ben-Gurion (d. 1968) was the Russian-born wife of David Ben-Gurion the founding Prime Minister of Israel. They had three children together: Geula, Amos and Renana. Paula was raised in the United States and was known for her "ace and they were married in 1917Events January 2 The Royal Bank of Canada takes over Quebec Bank. January 22 World War I: President Woodrow Wilson calls for "peace without victory" in Europe. January 25 The Danish West Indies is sold to the United States for $25 million January 25 Anti-, they subsequently had three chidren. The family returned to Palestine after World War IWorld War I (also known as the First World War , the Great War the War of the Nations and the "War to End All Wars") was a world conflict occurring from 1914 to 1918. No previous conflict had mobilized so many soldiers, or involved so many in the field of after it had been conquered by the BritishThe word British has several different uses. See the article on Britain for more details. In a geographical context, it usually applies to a person or object from, or the people or nation of ("the British") the island of Great Britain though, confusingly,.

2 Zionist leadership

Ben-Gurion was at the political forefront of the Labor Zionist movement during the fifteen years leading to the creation of the State of Israel when Labor Zionism had become the dominant tendency in the World Zionist Organization.

He combined idealism with opportunism and a commitment to the establishment of a Jewish state above all other considerations. In 1938, at a meeting of Labor Zionists in Great Britain, Ben-Gurion argued: "If I knew that it would be possible to save all the children in Germany by bringing them over to England and only half of them by transporting them to Eretz Israel, then I opt for the second alternative. For we must take into account not only the lives of these children but also the history of the people of Israel."

Ben-Gurion was a hero of Israel and described as a moderate however some critics point out his diary entery of January 1, 1948 concerning the so-called Arab problem: "What is necessary is cruel and strong reactions. We need precision in time, place, and casualties. If we know the family, we must strike mercilessly, women and children included. Otherwise, the reaction is inefficient. At the place of action, there is no need to distinguish between guilty and innocent."

Ben-Gurion encouraged Jews to join the British military at the same time as he helped orchestrate the illegal immigration of thousands of European Jewish refugees to Palestine at a time when the British sought to bar new Jewish settlement. He is also considered the architect of both the Yishuv which created a Jewish state within a state and the Haganah, the paramilitary force of the Labor Zionist movement that facilitated underground immigration, defended kibbutzim and other Jewish settlements against attack and provided the backbone of the future Israeli Defence Forces. Both these developments put pressure on the British to either grant the Jews a state in Palestine or quit the League of Nations Mandate - they did the latter in 1948 on the heels of a United Nations resolution partitioning the territory between Jews and Arabs.

During the pre-statehood period in Palestine, Ben-Gurion represented the mainstream Jewish establishment and was known as a moderate, with whose Haganah organization the British dealt with frequently, sometimes in order to arrest more radical groups involved in resistance against them. He was strongly opposed to the Revisionist Zionist movement led by Ze'ev Jabotinsky and his successor Menachem Begin.

U.S. President Harry S. Truman, left, with David Ben-Gurion, behind them is Abba Eban.

He was also involved in occasional violent resistance during the short period of time his organization cooperated with Menachem Begin's Irgun. However, during the first weeks of Israel's independence, it was decided to disband all resistance groups and replace them with a single formal army. To that end, Ben-Gurion gave the order to open fire upon and sink a ship named Altalena , which carried ammunition for the Irgun (also called Etzel) resistance group. That command remains controversial to this day.





Non User