about me
My name is David Ben-Gurion, and I was the primary national founder of the State of Israel and the
first prime minister of Israel. I was born as David Grün in the town of Płońsk, which was then under
Russian rule in Poland, on 16 October 1886. In 1906, I moved to Palestine, and in 1909, I adopted the
name Ben-Gurion. Throughout my life, I had a deep passion for Zionism, which led me to become a major
Zionist leader and the executive head of the World Zionist Organization in 1946. As the head of the Jewish
Agency from 1935, and later as president of the Jewish Agency Executive, I was the de facto leader of
the Jewish community in Palestine. I largely led its struggle for an independent Jewish state in British-ruled
Mandatory Palestine. On 14 May 1948, I formally proclaimed the establishment of the State of Israel and
was the first to sign the Israeli Declaration of Independence, which I had helped to write I led Israel
during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War and united the various Jewish militias into the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).
As a result, I became known as "Israel's founding father". I continued to lead Israel until 1963 with a
short break in 1954–55. My legacy as a national founder and a prominent Zionist leader lives on in the history
of Israel and the Jewish people.
