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Ben-Gurion, prophet of fire

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I was amazed at the FASCINATING life of David Ben Gurion. He was a man w/ a mission that burned in his heart from the time he was a young boy. He suffered danger and privation to persue it. No risk was too great for him to suffer but to achieve his goal. He emmigrated from Poland to Israel when local Arabs had carte blanche for murder and destruction. He persevered to be instrumental in the founding and protection of the new state of Israel. He molded the new government, chose its leaders and helped to carve the nation into an international entity. His legacy lives in the vibrancy of its people, its government and its economy. Oh for more leaders like Ben Gurion!

David Ben-Gurion was one of the re-born State of Israel's founding fathers and her first prime minister.
This book describes his life from his origins in Plonsk, Poland, as David Green, and his arrival in Israel and early years of poverty. His love for Rachel Nelkin (later Beit-Halachmi) and his marriage to Paula.
This definitive biography explores Ben-Gurion's complex character, and total commitment to the Zionist dream and the State of Israel.
It also traces the history of Israel at the time through Ben-Gurion's experience.
Ben-Gurion was instrumental in building the Hisdatrut (General Federation of Jewish Labour), Israel's trade union movement of which he served as secretary-general from 1921 to 1935) and in 1930 the various Labour Zionist Parties together in the United Labour Party of Israel (Mapai) bringing together several Zionist Labour factions.
This book traces his role in rebuilding the State of Israel, his leadership of the fledgling state in the struggle for survival, of the War of Independence when Israel was attacked by seven Arab armies, heavily aided by the British, who later threatened to intervene on the Arab side, as the Soviets threatened to destroy Israel after Israel's war with Egypt during the 1956 Suez War.
A fascinating story is of how Vietnamese Communist leader Ho Chi Mihn, in 1947 actually offered to host a Zionist government in exile, in North Vietnam, so ironic considering the self-same Ho Chi Mihn's swing to supporting Israel's bloodthirsty enemies during the Six Day War and his support and heavy arming of the PLO, as well as his role in advising the PLO's propaganda strategy. See more about this in History Upside Down: The Roots of Palestinian Fascism and the Myth of Israeli Agression
The book traces Ben-Gurion's controversial decision to open ties with post-war Germany and it's chancellor Konrad Adenauer, as well as the resultant political earthquake in Israel as a result the Lavon Affair, Ben-Gurion's bitter fallout with his former comrades, including Moshe Sharett, Levi Eshkol and Golda Meir, and his years in the political wilderness.
A great achievement of the Ben-Gurion administration was Ben-Gurion's stunning announcement on 22 May 1961, in the Knesset, that Israel had captured Nazi mass murderer Adolf Eichmann.
Ben Gurion wanted to capture and put on trial the Nazi killer, not for vengeance but to put the butcher on trial and remind his forgetful people , and the world, why a Jewish State was necessary and why it had to defend itself against the efforts by the Arab states , in collaboration with fugitive Nazis, to destroy it.
A very intriguing and comprehensive biography of one of the founding fathers of a reborn nation, and one of the greatest Jewish leaders of all time.

I've always admired David Ben-Gurion without knowing exactly why. It was perhaps because I was born in 1949 and as I grew up he was considered a force for good in the world, but I didn't really know him. So, I am enjoying reading this book and learning about the creation of Israel and Ben-Gurion's role in history. The more you learn about a person like Ben-Gurion the more the shine comes off your view of him but you achieve an appreciation of how complex and flawed great men can be. It is perhaps uncomfortable to learn that Ben-Gurion intent on realizing his dream was not attentive to his wife and children. I'm reminded of the imperfections of John Kennedy and Dr. King. We can't expect perfection in humans no matter how much shine we put on them but we can hope for a person to be profoundly human and responsive to God's call when it comes.