by Bob Zeidman
David
Green was born in 1886 to a poor, but well-educated family in Plonsk, Poland. He lived in the days of violent pogroms and
learned of the murders of fellow Jews in Europe. His heroes were Vladimir Lenin and Karl Marx and Theodore Herzl. He saw in
Communism a way to empower the downtrodden. He saw in Zionism a way to empower his own, impoverished, persecuted people. In
1906, at the age of 20, an idealistic David Green made aliya to Israel, then known as Palestine, and changed his name to David
Ben-Gurion. He began putting his idealism to work in politics and Zionist organizations, but in 1915 at the outbreak of World
War I, the Ottoman Empire ejected the Zionists from Israel.
Ben-Gurion
landed in America and it is here that he learned first-hand, the ideals of equality and democracy. Here his enthusiasm for
Communism and his enchantment with Lenin was tempered, but his desire for a Jewish state in the land of Israel grew stronger.
In 1918 he joined the Jewish Legion of the British army and after WW I he returned to Israel, then under British control.
Ben-Gurion continued his Zionist activities, aiding Jews escaping anti-Semitism in Europe and persecution in Arab countries.
During
WW II, Ben-Gurion inspired tens of thousand of young Jews in Palestine to join the British army. His philosophy was to fight
the Nazis along side the British, but to fight the British, when necessary, for control of Israel. While the British trained
Jewish boys who would one day become leaders of the Israeli armed forces, Ben-Gurion set up secret agencies to skirt British
restrictions against settling Jewish refugees, survivors of Nazi death camps, in Israel.
On
May 14, 1948, David Ben-Gurion, having been appointed to the positions of Prime Minister and Minister of Defense, declared
independence for the new State of Israel, despite admonitions from Washington and doomsday predictions from some of his advisors.
Within hours, five Arab nations attacked Israel. Ben-Gurion led the tiny state to victory at a severe cost in lives –
1% of the Jewish population and thousands of Arabs.
For
five years, Ben-Gurion served as Prime Minister and then retired to work the land on his kibbutz, Sde Boker in the Negev.
Retirement did not last long, though, as he was elected to be Israel’s third Prime Minister from 1955 until 1963. He
remained politically active until his second retirement in 1970. Three years later he passed away.
David
Ben-Gurion was a tough, uncompromising man with no sense of humor and little time for social pleasures. His iron-willed personality
was contained in a small, frail body with a large round head accented with puffs of white-cotton hair. He was what Israel
needed in its early days – a “wrathful father personality” according to Israeli author Amos Oz. Ben-Gurion’s
dream was for Israel to be not only a safe haven for Jews, but a “Light unto the Nations” and he worked passionately
and without compromise toward that goal.
In
the 13th year of Israel’s existence – its “Bar Mitzvah year” as he called it – Ben-Gurion
wrote these words for the Atlantic Monthly. Today, with anti-Semitism appearing openly in Europe and the United Nations becoming
a tool for anti-Israel despots, these words bear repeating.
The adherents of Jewish independence refuse to rely on any
foreign verdict. They are well aware of the limited numbers and capacity of the Jewish people… But there is one kingdom
in which the Jewish people regard themselves as equal in all respects, even in the capacity to influence humanity at large
and the generations to come, and that is the kingdom of the spirit and the vision… It is not through numerical strength
or political and economic power that Jerusalem and Athens have left their mark on the culture of a large part of the human
race… The Jewish people will not submit to foreign bondage or surrender to the great and the powerful in determining
their future...
