The Jews in Their Land.

BEN-GURION, David.

$400.00

Item Number: 140977

Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company, 1966.

First edition of this finely illustrated work by David Ben-Gurion. Quarto, original cloth, illustrated. Near fine in a near fine dust jacket. Jacket design by Ben Shahn. Translated from the Hebrew by Modechai Nurock and Misha Louvish.

David Ben-Gurion was the primary founder of the State of Israel and the first Prime Minister of Israel. Ben-Gurion's passion for Zionism, which began early in life, led him to become a major Zionist leader and Executive Head of the World Zionist Organization in 1946. As head of the Jewish Agency from 1935, and later president of the Jewish Agency Executive, he was the de facto leader of the Jewish community in Palestine, and largely led its struggle for an independent Jewish state in Mandatory Palestine. On 14 May 1948, he formally proclaimed the establishment of the State of Israel, and was the first to sign the Israeli Declaration of Independence, which he had helped to write. Ben-Gurion led Israel during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, and united the various Jewish militias into the Israel Defense Forces. Subsequently, he became known as "Israel's founding father."