Ben gurion biography book

A State at Any Cost: The Life of David Ben-Gurion
(Tom Segev: Farrar, Strauss, Giroux: )
Translated by Haim Watzman
Reviewed by Peter Eisenstadt

During the years Tom Segev was writing his indispensable biography of David Ben-Gurion, A State at Any Cost, he records that he was confronted by a Ben-Gurion revival in Israel; new books, plays, films, documentaries about the former prime minister. Many of them looked at him nostalgically, eager to recall a time when Israel’s leaders were not personally corrupt, did not see public service as an excuse for private enrichment, and when Israel and “unending moral quagmire” were not yet synonyms.  (Ben-Gurion did have an unfortunate habit of making extravagant book purchases on the government’s shekel, which is, I must say, for me anyway, the most forgivable of all forms of venality.) And it is certainly true that during Ben-Gurion’s era, Zionism, outside of the Arab world of course, had far more lauders than detractors, and Zionism was seen as a progressive cause rather than a rallying cry for reactionaries.  But the best way to inoculate oneself against Ben-Gurion nostalgia, in thinking, with Wordsworth’s Milton, that Ben-Gurion “shouldst be living at this hour” is to read Segev’s book.  For those who hope for a new, democratic Israel, let us leave Ben-Gurion interred at Sde Boker.

Although Segev’s book has affinities with Israel’s “new historians,” now a generation old, his main purpose is not a recounting of Israel’s sorry history of relations with Palestinian Arabs.  Neither is it an effort at debunking nor a catalogue of his flaws and shortcomings, though catalogue them he does, running through most of the seven deadly sins; including at least envy, pride, vanity, and concupiscence.  However, one sin Segev does not, and cannot, accuse Ben-Gurion of, is sloth. Ben-Gurion was a force of nature, a machine of perpetual motion and ambition,  who accomplished much and who worked

Prime Minister of Israel (–; –)

"Ben Gurion" redirects here. For other uses, see Ben Gurion (disambiguation).

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David Ben-Gurion (ben GOOR-ee-ən; Hebrew: דָּוִד בֶּן־גּוּרִיּוֹן[daˈvidbenɡuʁˈjon]; born David Grün; 16 October – 1 December ) was the primary national founder and first prime minister of the State of Israel. As head of the Jewish Agency from , and later president of the Jewish Agency Executive, he was the de facto leader of the Jewish community in Palestine, and largely led the movement for an independent Jewish state in Mandatory Palestine.

Born in Płońsk, then part of Congress Poland, to Polish Jewish parents, he immigrated to the Palestine region of the Ottoman Empire in Adopting the name of Ben-Gurion in , he rose to become the preeminent leader of the Jewish community in British-ruled Mandatory Palestine from until the establishment of the State of Israel in , which he led until with a short break in – Ben-Gurion's interest for Zionism developed early in his life, leading him to become a major Zionist leader, and the executive head of the World Zionist Organization in

On 14 May , he formally proclaimed the establishment of Israel, and was the first to sign the Israeli Declaration of Independence, which he had helped to write. Under Ben-Gurion's leadership, the Arab–Israeli War saw the uniting of the various Jewish militias into the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), and the expulsion and flight of a majority of the Palestinian Arab population. Subsequently, he became known as "Israel's founding father". Following the war, Ben-Gurion served as Israel's first prime minister and minister of defence. As prime minister, he helped build state institutions, presiding over national proje

This biography encompasses the history of David Ben-Gurion's life from his childhood and youth in his native Poland to his death in This perspective of his life history presented in these wo volumes differs from biographies and previous studies written on Ben-Gurion in the facts presented therein, historical analysis and conclusions. The biography is based on primary sources, some of which have not been used so far: Ben-Gurion's diary, an irreplaceable historical source that teaches about his life, activities and mindset, though his writing is repetitive and his credibility is limited, his epistles, related protocols, selected press, as well as secondary sources. Writing this new biography entailed tackling many questions related to the historical importance of the subject of biography , the greatest Jewish statesman ever , and his complex personality. Who was the man? The smartest person? Incredibly intuitive? Belligerent? Compassionate? A political manipulator? Stubborn? A strange man in his behavior?
Historical developments have been linked to personality traits. Ben-Gurion did not shy away from making tough decisions, even when he knew their results could be terrible, even when he was aware that he might be wrong in his political, military, economic and political analyses. He knew how to decide and control his authority. When he did, he was resolute, even when the resistance was dramatic. Indeed, he had errors in analyzing reality. Some would even emphasize his mistakes. Nevertheless, there has not been another leader like him who influenced Jewish society in modern times and whose dramatic decisions later determined the character and development of the State of Israel.
The first volume of the biography begins in his hometown of Płońsk, Poland, upon his immigration to Palestine and his assassination there as a "second immigrant" son. Later he describes his trip to the United States, returning

Berl Katznelson, one of Labour Zionism’s ideological founders described David Ben-Gurion as ‘history’s gift to the Jewish people.’ Anita Shapira rightly describes Israel’s first Prime Minister as a Jacobin – a product of revolutionary fin de siecle Eastern Europe, a cold enigmatic figure lacking charisma who changed the flow of Jewish history and redirected it into a national channel. As Shapira remarks, ‘people admired Ben-Gurion, but did not really like him.’

Ben-Gurion’s story began as David Gruen (Green) in the township of Plonsk, marooned on the highway between Warsaw and Gdansk. Over 60 per cent of its inhabitants were Jews and many of them were Gerer Hassidim. Ben-Gurion’s father was a mitnaged, an opponent of Hassidism and a member of the early Zionist group, Hibbat Zion. An outsider from the very beginning, he grew up imbibing the writings of the founders of Zionism. He joined Poale Zion at a founding meeting in the Warsaw home of the Marxist Zionist, Yitzhak Tabenkin and influenced by the Russian revolution went off to Palestine to build socialism. There, he Hebraised his name to Ben-Gurion – a resistance fighter featured in Flavius Josephus’s War of the Jews.

Shapira argues that Ben-Gurion was less enamoured by the projections of inverted socio-economic pyramids to describe the situation of the Jews by the Marxist Ber Borokhov than by Micha Berdyczewski’s concept of will. Ben-Gurion’s hard, often unemotional, approach – harder than his nemesis, Menachem Begin and certainly less emotional – was cemented in his perception of the reality. For this reason, he related to Churchill’s resolve and rhetoric in the dark days of and the response of the British to his defiant speeches. In May Ben-Gurion wrote from London to his wife, describing his wonder at British determination – ‘the level-headedness and inner confidence of this wonderful nation.’ Just as Churchill, despite his sympathy for Zionism, placed British national interests above concern for the