Born David Gruen in Poland, Ben-Gurion became committed to
Zionism, the movement to settle and unite Jews in Palestine, under the
influence of his father and grandfather. He studied in Warsaw, where he joined
Po’alei Zion (Workers of Zion), a socialist workers party. Ben-Gurion saw
Zionism as a practical idea to be carried out by Jewish immigration to
Palestine and building the land through collective labor. In 1906 he moved to
Jaffa, Palestine (now part of Tel Aviv-Yafo, Israel), and worked as a farmer.
There he was elected to the central committee of Po’alei Zion and began
organizing workers into unions. In 1910 he moved to Jerusalem and joined the
editorial staff of a new Hebrew-language newspaper, Ahdut (Unity), publishing
articles under the name Ben-Gurion (Hebrew for "son of the young
lion"). He enrolled at the University of Constantinople in present-day
Turkey in 1912 and earned a law degree in 1914. He then returned to Palestine
and resumed his work as a union organizer, but in 1915 he traveled to the
United States after he and thousands of other Zionists were exiled by the
Ottoman Empire authorities who controlled Palestine.
In 1917 Britain issued the Balfour Declaration, which
expressed the British government’s support for establishing a Jewish national
home in Palestine. Ben-Gurion joined the Jewish Legion—volunteer military units
formed to assist British troops in liberating Palestine from Ottoman rule. He
returned to Palestine, where in 1920 he helped found a federation of Jewish
labor unions called the Histadrut, of which he served as secretary general from
1921 to 1935. Ben-Gurion was also instrumental in founding the Ahdut Ha’avodah
party in 1919, which became Mapai (Israel Workers Party) in 1930. From its
founding, Ben-Gurion worked to ensure that Mapai was the dominant force in the
Zionist movement. Meanwhile, in 1922 the League of Nations issued a mandate
granting the British government control over Palestine.
Ben-Gurion's passion for Zionism, which began early in
life, led him to become a major Zionist leader and Executive Head of the World Zionist
Organization in 1946. As head of the Jewish Agency, and later
president of the Jewish Agency Executive, he became the de
facto leader of the Jewish community in Palestine, and largely led
its struggle for an independent Jewish state in Palestine. On 14 May 1948, he
formally proclaimed the establishment of the State of Israel, and was the
first to sign the Israeli Declaration of Independence, which he had helped
to write. Ben-Gurion led Israel during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, and
united the various Jewish militias into the Israel Defense
Forces (IDF). Subsequently, he became known as
"Israel's founding father".
Following the war, Ben-Gurion served as Israel's first Prime
Minister. As Prime Minister, he helped build the state institutions, presiding
over various national projects aimed at the development of the country. He also
oversaw the absorption of vast numbers of Jews from all over the world. A
centerpiece of his foreign policy was improving relationships with
the West Germans. He worked very well with Konrad Adenauer's government in
Bonn, and West Germany provided large sums (in the Reparations
Agreement between Israel and West Germany) in compensation for Nazi
Germany's persecution of the Jews during the Holocaust.
In 1954, he resigned and served as Minister of Defense,
before returning to office in 1955. Under his leadership, Israel responded
aggressively to Arab attacks, and in 1956, invaded Egypt along
with British and French forces after Egypt nationalized the Suez Canal.
He stepped down from office in 1963, and retired from political
life in 1970. He then moved to Sde Boker, a kibbutz in
the Negevdesert, where he lived until his death. Posthumously, Ben-Gurion
was named one of Time magazine's 100 Most Important People of
the 20th century. (Adapted from Encarta Encyclopedia and Wikipedia Encyclopedia)
