David Bin Gorion

David Bin Gorion's Profile

Haeim Avigdor Green adopted a Hebrew name to become David Bin Gorion, “The Lion’s Son” – a name no Palestinian will ever forget.

Although a sickly child, Bin Gorion, left home at 13, eager to make his mark on the world. His character was forged in the fiercely Zionist mode – following in his father’s ideological footsteps and even studying in the Hebrew school his father established. Throughout his life he believed that God had decreed a Jewish homeland in Palestine. He married this concept with secular left-wing thinking.

While at university in Warsaw he joined the Zion Workers (Labour Socialist Party), before putting his politics into practice and travelling to Palestine to till the soil on a kibbutz. From there he moved to Turkey to study law like his father.

Returning to Palestine he found himself on the wrong side of the Ottoman authorities and was deported. He travelled to the US in 1915 where he met his wife Pauline Munweis – who remained devoted to him throughout her life.

He was Israel’s first prime minister (1948-53), taking the office for a second term between 1955 and 1963. He was instrumental in establishing a Hebrew university in Jerusalem, founding a Jewish financial organisation, choosing an Israeli flag and selecting a national anthem.

Bin Gorion was a big-hitter. His career was peppered with top posts: chairman of the Jewish Agency for Palestine, the body which collaborated with the British to represent the Jews in Palestine and sign the Balfour Declaration, 1920; 1921-1935 the first secretary-general of Histadrut (today Israel’s largest voluntary labour union); 1930, he helped form the Israeli Labour Party, Mapai; 1935, chairman of the Zionist Executive, the highest body of international Zionism.

The second world war intensified the Jewish effort to form a homeland. Due to the urgency, an emergency committee of Zionist affairs was formed. It was able to bypass the Zionist Congress and, in 1942, with more than 600 American Zionists convened at the Biltmore Hotel in New York (including Bin Gorion), it adopted a programme that set out the framework for a Jewish state in Palestine.

As Israel’s first prime minister, he unified the militia to form the “Israeli Defence Force” (IDF) and encouraged Jewish immigration to Israel. He had been at the forefront of opposition to British restrictions on immigration dating back to 1939 – calling for rebellions against the policy.

In 1956, under his premiership Israel attacked Egypt during the Suez Crisis, taking control of Sinai. Israel withdrew a year later under US pressure.

During his political career he formed two of his own parties. Annoyed by Mapai’s activities, he established Rafi; when in turn this party formed a coalition with Mapai he formed the Laam party.

In 1970, Bin Gorion retired from political activity to study and write. He died in 1973 aged 87.

He wrote two books, Israel: A Personal History and The Jews In Their Land