David Ben-Gurion

Who is David Ben-Gurion?

Born David Grün in Płońsk, then part of the Russian Empire, Ben-Gurion emigrated to Ottoman Palestine in 1906 and became the foremost leader of the Zionist labor movement. As chairman of the Jewish Agency he guided the Yishuv through the final years of the British Mandate, and on 14 May 1948 he publicly proclaimed the establishment of the State of Israel, serving as its first Prime Minister and Defense Minister. He led the new state through the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, oversaw the creation of the Israel Defense Forces and core national institutions, and championed mass Jewish immigration and the development of the Negev desert. He served as Prime Minister from 1948 to 1954 and again from 1955 to 1963, later retiring to Kibbutz Sde Boker, where he is buried.

Sources: Shabtai Teveth, 'Ben-Gurion: The Burning Ground, 1886–1948' (1987) · Anita Shapira, 'Ben-Gurion: Father of Modern Israel' (2014)