David Ben Gurion

David Ben Gurion (1886-1973) was Israel’s founding father in multiple ways. As the leader of the pre-state Jewish community in Palestine throughout the 1930s and 40s, Ben Gurion led the Zionist Movement’s efforts to build the Jewish homeland and create the necessary institutions to become a state. He led the Yishuv (the Jewish community in Palestine) through constant fighting with the Arabs, resistance to the British Mandate, and Israel’s War of Independence, declaring the independent State of Israel on May 14, 1948. He led the country as its first Prime Minister, serving twice in that role, making him Israel’s dominant political figure until his death in 1973. He led Israel’s absorption of millions of Jewish refugees and immigrants, built the country’s relationship with American Jewry and the American government, led the 1956 Sinai Campaign against Egypt, promulgated numerous major infrastructure projects such as the National Water Carrier and Israel’s nuclear weapons development, began the practice of exempting Orthodox Jews from military service, and following his retirement moved to a small kibbutz in the Negev Desert named Sde Boker, where he and his wife are buried.