DAVID BEN GURION

David Ben Gurion was the first Prime Minister of the State of Israel.

http://www.jajz-ed.org.il/100/people/bios/bg.html

He was born in 1886 in what was then Russia.  He made Aliyah when he was twenty years old.

When Ben Gurion moved to the Land of Israel, the Ottomon Turks were in charge.  At first, he thought that the Turkish government would be very friendly to Zionism.  However, he soon found out that that was not the case.  The Turks (and Germans) were fighting the British in World War One, and they thought that the Jews in the Land of Israel were helping the British.  In 1915, the Turks arrested Ben Gurion and sent him to Egypt.

David Ben Gurion spent much of the rest of the war in America.  He worked to convince American Jews that after the war was over they should help to settle the Land of Israel.  When he was able to return to Israel after the war, he helped to organize different Zionist groups.  In 1935 he became the chairman of the Jewish Agency.  He worked to help Jews to immigrate to Israel and to convince the nations of the world that there should be a Jewish State.

a map of when the Land of Israel (then called Palestine) was ruled by the Ottoman Turks

In 1948, the Jews in the Land of Israel had to decide whether they should declare the new State of Israel.  Even though the United Nations said that they could, the Arab countries did not want there to be a Jewish State.  Even many people who agreed there should be a Jewish State thought it was too dangerous for Israel to be born.

http://www.wzo.org.il/home/portrait/bg.htm

Ben Gurion was very brave.  He said that even though it may mean war, this was the moment that the Jewish People had waited for the last 1900 years.  It was time to make the State of Israel a reality.  He was correct.  Israel won the war and the Jews of the world finally had a place to call their own.http://www.hadassah.org/about/orgfrm2.htm

Ben Gurion was the first Prime Minister of the State of Israel.  He served from 1948 to 1953, and again from 1955 to 1963.

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