David Bin Gorion

January 25: David Ben Gorion becomes first Israeli Prime Minister.

David Bin Gorion
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David Bin Gorion
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David Bin Gorion
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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.