DAVID
BEN GURION
Kibbutz
Sde Boker – the Field of the Herdsman –, located in the Negev nineteen
kilometers south of the small city of Yeroham, was established on
May 15th, 1952 by some veteran of the resistance movements against
the British. It became famous the day David Ben Gurion, the founder
of the State of Israel and the leader of its first government decided
to settle there with his wife, Paula, to promote the colonization
of the desert.
Ben
Gurion, ex Green, was born in 1886 in Plonsk, Poland, which was under
Russian domination. His father was a member of Hoveivei Zion – the
Lover of Zion –, which, even before the appearance of Theodore Herzl,
the founder of Zionism, advocated the return of the Jews to Israel.
Ben Gurion was twenty years old when he disembarked in Palestine where
he began working in the agricultural settlements of Petah Tikva and
Rishon le-Zion. He then went to the Galilee with the intention of
“redeeming the rocky ground”: the localities where he stopped over
– Sejera, Ilanya, Kinneret, Milhamia… - would become as such landmarks
in the history of the Jewish colonization of this region. Ben Gurion
and his companions worked the land that had been abandoned for centuries,
placing their salvation and that of their people in this hard labor
of “reclaiming the land.” More particularly, they created an organization
of guardians – the Hashomer – to assure the safety of the Jewish localities
assaulted by the bands of Arabs.
An enthusiastic Socialist, Ben Gurion was actively engaged in the
activities of the Poalei Zion and together with Isaac Ben Zvi, directed
the organization’s newspaper in which he expounded his ideas. In 1911,
he and a number of militants of the workers’ movement enrolled in
a Turkish university where they intended to establish contacts with
the circles of the Young Turks who had just come to power in Istanbul.
When the First World War broke out, he, at first, supported loyalty
to the Turks. But the latter will accuse him of conspiracy in order
to establish a Jewish state in Palestine and will exile him to Egypt.
From there, he will go to New York where he worked for the expansion
of the pioneer movement of he-Halutz. Soon after the Balfour Declaration
(1917), which advocated the creation of a national Jewish home in
Palestine, Ben Gurion decided to join the ranks of the Jewish Legion
created within the framework of the British Army. He had previously
married his companion, Paula, with whom he maintained and would continue
to maintain correspondence that restored the loving and at the same
time stormy bonds that joined them.
A
letter to Paula
The following letter, dated
May 15th, 1919 is also addressed to their daughter, Geula:
A letter to Paula |
Dear Paula,
dear Geula,
I am writing to you from one of the new localities – moshavot
– located some distance from Yaffo where I have managed
to escape for a few days. The long and endless meetings
in this city, the assemblies and the conferences did not
leave me with more than an instant to myself. And as I must
write a series of articles for a collective piece, I had
to find a calm place to carry out this task without being
disturbed.
Upon
rereading your letters, I envision your two faces traced
on the paper and my heart overflows with love and sinks
with nostalgia. I don’t know what is happening to me; I
have never known such confusion. Am I in the process of
discovering a new weakness? Do you remember the short moments
that we would spend together in the morning when setting
aside my duties, I would come to look for you? You were
often sleeping after a sleepless night of work and I would
wake you up with a kiss or a caress on your naked arm and
your eyes would not cease to implore me to stay a little
bit longer. More than your eyes, my heart also cried out
to me to stay and we would count the minutes that would
pass so quickly. What joy and what happiness! What I wouldn’t
give at this moment, my dear Paula, to experience similar
moments, a short second and a furtive glimpse of you! I
love you like a young adolescent, a mad first love, seeking
your lips, looking for your hands, wanting nothing more
than to hold you tightly against me, to take you in my arms,
to go to your bed, to lean on you, to press myself on you
and loose myself in your arms, forgetting everything that
is not you, like then, and to know the happiness in the
intimacy of your love – together, arm in arm, blending our
voices, heart to heart, in your bed of youth that was sacred
to me.
Our
love will have taken hold so suddenly, falling in love with
each other so quickly and the time that we spent together
will have been so brief, leaving each other so soon to live
separated from each other longer than we had lived together,
thatthe same fire burns in my heart, the same love. No,
not the same love, Paula, but a more profound love, stronger,
more ardent and more sacred! My love for you, for my dear,
dear little girl, my dear, dear wife, my dear mother. My
dear, dear love, my one and only Paula, my dear, my unique,
my unparalleled Paula. I miss you so and my heart overflows
with so much love! When will I be able to shower you with
my love? When will we meet again?
Dear
Paula, you reproach me for not writing often enough. I unfortunately
do not find the time to do so. Bu if you knew how much I
write to you without ink or paper, how full my head and
my heart are of you! If only you could read my thoughts,
read from far what I think and what I feel, you would not
have enough whole days, you would no longer sleep throughout
the nights, so numerous are my non-written letters to you.
From where does so much love, so much yearning, come? Do
they come to me from you? Do they come to me from our Geula
– that remarkable grace and that extraordinary happiness
that you have bestowed upon me. Rather from the two of you,
together, my loves. How beautiful must our love be to have
born such fruit!
Henceforth,
I have but one desire: to bring you both, although it is
a little difficult for me to consider you and the baby as
two separate beings since I considered you more like a single
being, and, moreover, a part of my being, my heart and my
soul.
Unfortunately,
I do not know when that will be possible. My present status
is far from clear. I am still in the army. It is possible
that before long – it has not yet been decided – we will
be released and we will be able to be together again.
Yours
always,
D. Ben Gurion, Letters to Paula
|
After
the war, Ben Gurion founded a new party, the Achdut ha-Avodah (the
Labor Union) and in 1920, a trade union – the Histadrut – that was
to become one of the instruments of the Jewish settlement of Palestine.
In the thirties, he led a campaign against the Zeev Jabotinsky’s Revisionists,
the opponents of the Socialist stream within the Zionist movement.
The labor parties, united under his leadership were, moreover, to
secure control of the Zionist Organization and of the Jewish Agency.
As president of the second institution, Ben Gurion will in fact assume
the leadership of the Jewish community of Palestine – the yishuv –
from 1935 to 1948. In 1939, he will propel the wave of protests that
the publication of the White Paper that limited Jewish immigration
to Palestine by the English will receive, nevertheless, resigning
himself to collaborating with them throughout the Second World War.
He declared: “We must support the British in this war as if there
was no White Paper and fight the White Paper as if there was no war.”
After the war, he resumed the fight against the English, encouraging
illegal immigration and giving the green light to sabotage their operations.
The
Scroll of Independence
During the years
preceding the establishment of the State of Israel, Ben Gurion worked
hard to set up the military apparatus that was to assure the defense
of the yishuv, hastening, in particular, the purchase of arms in the
prospect of a war against the Arabs. And on May 14th, 1948 he insisted
on proclaiming the independence of the State of Israel in spite of
the wavering of his colleagues, the leaders of the yishuv, and of
numerous sources of international pressure. During a solemn ceremony,
Ben Gurion read the Declaration of Independence of the State of Israel
with a quavering voice pierced by an emotion nourished by two thousand
years of exile and hope. This declaration will form the constitutional
charter of Israel:
The Scroll of Independence |
The
Land of Israel is the birthplace of the Jewish People. Here
their spiritual, religious and national character was formed.
Here they achieved independence and created a culture of
both national and universal significance. Here they wrote
and gave the Bible to the world.
Exiled
from Palestine, the Jewish People remained faithful to it
in all the countries of their dispersion, never ceasing
to pray and hope for their return and the restoration of
their national freedom
Impelled
by this historic association, Jews strove throughout the
centuries to go back to the land of their fathers and regain
their Statehood. In recent decades, they returned in their
masses. They reclaimed the wilderness, revived their language,
built cities and villages, and established a vigorous and
ever-growing community its own economic and cultural life.
They sought peace yet were prepared to defend themselves.
They brought the blessings to all the inhabitants of the
country.
In
the year 1897, the First Zionist Congress, inspired by Theodore
Herzl’s vision of the Jewish State, proclaimed the right
of the Jewish People to national revival in their own country.
This
right was acknowledged by the Balfour Declaration of November
2, 1917 and reaffirmed by the Mandate of the League of Nations,
which gave explicit international recognition to the historic
connection of the Jewish People with Palestine and their
right to reconstruct their national home.
[…]
The
survivors of the Shoah [perpetrated by the Nazis in Europe],
as well as like the Jews from other lands, proclaiming their
right to a life of dignity, freedom and labor, and undeterred
by hazards, hardships and obstacles, have tried increasingly
to enter Palestine.
[…]
It
is, moreover, the most natural, self-evident right of the
Jewish People to be a nation like other nations in its own
sovereign state.
Accordingly,
we, the members of the National Council, representing the
Jewish People in Palestine and the Zionist movement of the
world met together in solemn assembly today, the day of
the termination of the British Mandate for Palestine, and
by virtue of the natural and historic right of the Jewish
People and of the resolution of the General Assembly of
the United Nations, hereby proclaim the establishment of
the Jewish State in Palestine, to be called the “State of
Israel”.
[…]
The
State of Israel will be open to the immigration of Jews
from all countries of their dispersion and will promote
the development of the country for the benefit its inhabitants.
It will be founded on the principles of liberty, justice
and peace taught by the prophets of Israel. It will guarantee
the fullest equality to all its citizens without discrimination
on the basis of religion, race or gender. It will guarantee
full freedom of conscience, worship, education and culture.
It will safeguard the sanctity and inviolability of the
shrines and holy places of all religions and will respect
the principles of the United Nations’ Charter.
[…]
We
extend our hand in friendship, peace and good neighborliness
to all the neighboring states and to their peoples. We invite
them to cooperate with the sovereign Jewish nation for the
common good of all. The State of Israel is prepared to contribute
to the peaceful progress and development of the entire Middle
East.
We
call out to the Jewish People throughout the world to rally
to our side in the endeavor of immigration and the development
of the country and to assist us in the great struggle in
which we are engaged to realize the dream cherished from
generation to generation: The Redemption of Israel.
With
faith in the Eternal, the Omni-Potent, we sign this declaration
on the ground of our homeland, in the city of Tel Aviv,
during this session of the Provisional Assembly of the State,
held on the eve of Shabbath, the 5th of Iyar 5708, the 14th
of May, 1948.
The
return to the desert [ëåúøú îùðä]
Ben Gurion filled the positions of Prime Minister and Minister
of Defense in the provisional government of the State of
Israel as well as in the government that he formed the day
after the first legislative elections. In 1953, he decided
to leave politics to settle in Sde Boker, inviting his citizens
to settle down to the task of reclaiming the desert. He
recounts the circumstances of his decision in a passage
of his memoirs where he emphasizes the importance that the
settlement of the Negev would assume for the revival of
the Jewish civilization in Palestine, the desert representing
the setting where the Hebrew nation is born and where it
can recover its gifts and its original virtues:
The
return to the desert
One
day, when I had occasion to drive to Eilat on official business
as Prime Minister, I told the driver to leave the main road
onto a dirt path in the desert. I wanted to break away from
my busy schedule and to take a few moments to plunge myself
into the vast stretches of the desert, to renew myself by
experiencing the awesome effect of these open spaces, which
will never be diminished in my eyes, with their double message
of the insignificance of man in an infinite universe and
about the hope that animates him.
We
drove along the path for some time and suddenly we saw a
gathering of people and a few wooden shacks before us. We
stopped and I descended the embankment to inquire about
the young people there: “What are you doing here?” They
said that in their own manner, they were leading a battle
for the independence of Israel by reclaiming the desert.
As that was what I had been urging the Jews to do since
I had entered politics, I did not hide the pleasure that
this reply gave me…
I
had always regretted having abandoned the life of the pioneers
even if it was for the sake of representing their interests
within the current Jewish political movement. But I always
knew that one day or another, I would try to return to their
way of life that I considered to be the most satisfying
to a Jew. These young people had discovered by themselves
what I had tried to communicate to our people: that the
Negev was our path and our future, that the fight for true
independence had only just begun and that it could only
be won in the desert. So I proposed to them: “May I join
you?” They were flabbergasted but made no objection. This
is how I finally took a leave of absence from the government
to settle in Sde Boker in 1953.
My
first days at the kibbutz were especially difficult. My
physical condition left much to be desired. But I was determined
to dissuade my comrades from according me special treatment.
For this, I had to keep pace with the best of them. During
those first weeks, I was exhausted and how I struggled with
myself to hide it!
The
kibbutz practiced the rotation of duties. A list of duties
with the names of the persons scheduled to do them was pinned
on the notice board. The first time that I looked at it,
I discovered that they had assigned Mr. Ben Gurion to sheep
shearing while the first names of everyone else appeared
on the list. I immediately went to see those responsible
to declare that it was not Mr. Ben Gurion who had joined
the kibbutz but rather David, simply David. And from that
day forward, I did not cease to check the notice board to
find out what David was to do.
My
attitude, moreover, prompted the foreman to test me by assigning
the heaviest and most difficult, irksome tasks. I concealed
from him that I had guessed his intentions. In a word, I
drew the greatest satisfaction from my scheme, for myself
and for others, which I had not experienced in years. To
me, the life of the settler represented happiness. To be
at peace with oneself and to struggle to accomplish a task
related to nature in which one believes, what more can you
wish for in life?! Within a few weeks, I became so tough
that I felt capable of enduring everything. It was then
that I felt totally integrated in the group and that too
was very gratifying. Working with young people preserves
youth and guarantees that of one’s ideas. It brought me
great pleasure to listen to the opinions of my young comrades
and to discuss with them…
Each
man must look within himself for his reason for living.
For example, now that I am old, I am increasingly confronted
with the prospect of death. Some time ago, a young man asked
me if I was afraid to die. I resorted to the Talmud method
that consists of replying to a question with another question:
“What does it matter if I am afraid or not? I know that
I must one day die, why then be afraid?” But I still have
much to live for and that is what I have always lived for:
my work. The Negev has given me the time and the perspective
to reexamine the renaissance of modern Israel whose entire
history has yet to be reconstructed by anyone. The young
generations must learn about the past, which nourishes our
present, in order to better understand the future and to
place it within a broader context of greater horizons. The
book that I am currently working on and which will take
me at least seven more years to complete, provided that
I live that long, is intended to present Israel as a continuous
chain. In truth, as viable as our nation is, it is not yet
fully established. We are only beginning – a good beginning.
But to begin is not enough…
Nowhere
else in the country, not even in Jerusalem, does the continuity
with the past have as much significance as here. My idea
of the role of the desert in the establishment of Israel
greatly resembles that of Abraham, which he offers in his
vision of the Promised Land and of the life of his people.
Abraham crossed the Euphrates, entered Canaan and turned
towards the south. He only went to Egypt forced by the famine,
returning quickly to Canaan. “Abraham planted a tamarisk
in Beersheva and proclaimed the name of God, the Eternal”,
declares Genesis 21: 33. These simple words link the supreme
concept of God, which underlies Judaism, to the act of cultivating
this barren land. In other words, Abraham consecrates this
land to his people and in this way, we are simply following
his tracks….
The
Negev, moreover, offers a field of experiences to urban
planners. We could easily settle five million people here.
Yes, five million! And in spaciousness, comfort, calm and
beauty. We would house in small localities to preserve and
maintain their communal spirit; no more than ten or fifteen
inhabitants per settlement… When the people will arrive,
escaping Tel Aviv to settle in this place, we will no longer
have to worry about the Egyptians or anyone else threatening
to exterminate half of our population by shooting missiles
on a single one of our cities.
We
need Jews, natives of the United States, Rhodesia, Iraq,
Russia or elsewhere. We wish to see them come to us to live
freely and fully both as men and as Jews as nowhere else.
They will have to work hard in order to create a new civilization,
something completely new. We want them to settle in the
desert to make something different out of it than what we
have known up to now on earth that is better adapted to
the environment and that will be a source of inspiration
to all humanity…
The
desert provides us with the best opportunity to begin again.
This is a vital element of our renaissance in Israel. For
it is in mastering nature that man learns to control himself.
It is in this sense, more practical than mystic, that I
define our Redemption on this land. Israel must continue
to cultivate its nationality and to represent the Jewish
people without renouncing its glorious past. It must earn
this – which is no small task – a right that can only be
acquired in the desert.
When
I looked out my window today and saw a tree standing before
me, the sight awoke in me a greater sense of beauty and
personal satisfaction than all the forests that I have crossed
in Switzerland and Scandinavia. For we planted each tree
in this place and watered them with the water we provided
at the cost of numerous efforts. Why does a mother love
her children so? Because they are her creation. Why does
the Jew feel an affinity with Israel? Because everything
here must still be accomplished. It depends only on him
to participate in this privileged act of creation. The trees
at Sde Boker speak to me differently than do the trees planted
elsewhere. Not only because I participated in their planting
and in their maintenance, but also because they are a gift
of man to nature and a gift of the Jews to the compost of
their culture.
D. Ben Gurion, Memoirs
|
Two years later, Ben Gurion returned to the government as Minister
of Defense. In 1955, the new
elections brought him to the presidency of the Council. In October
1956, the Israeli army invaded the Sinai, which served as a terrorist
base while the French and the English seized the Suez Canal that the
Egyptians had threatened to nationalize. In March 1957, the evacuation
of the Sinai is completed under pressure by the United States and
the Soviet Union. During the following years, Ben Gurion will make
many trips overseas in order to consolidate the international standing
of his country. He will meet, among others, the German Chancellor,
Adenauer, the French President, de Gaulle, and the American President,
Kennedy. In June 1963, he again quit the government to retire in Sde
Boker where he will devote himself to writing his memoirs and receiving
the official guests of the Hebrew State wearing trousers and a khaki
shirt with the simplicity and the humility that the desert imposes
upon men. Ben Gurion resigned for good from the Israeli Parliament
– the Knesset – in 1970 and died in 1974.
The
waters of discord
The pavilion of
the Old Man today houses a museum. It seems that everything there
is exactly as he left them: a copy of Michelangelo’s’ Moses, official
documents, personal papers and his books. His intellectual passion
ranged from the Bible to Buddhism. He was very interested in philosophy,
especially that of Spinoza, the philosopher who was excommunicated
by the Synagogue because of his heretic theses and who would not cease
to call for his reinstatement.
The tombs of David and Paula Ben Gurion, dug side by side, are located
on the hill that overlooks the desert of Zin where Moses performed
the miracle that consisted of drawing water from a rock:
The waters of discord |
The
children of Israel, the whole congregation, came into
the desert of Zin in the first month and the people sojourned
in Qadesh. Miriam died and was buried there. And there
was no water there for the congregation and they assembled
together against Moses and Aaron. The people quarreled
with Moses saying: “Would that we had died with our brothers
before the Eternal! Why have your brought the congregation
of the Eternal into the desert? So that our cattle and
we should die here? And why have you brought us up out
of Egypt and led us to this evil place? It is a place
without seeds or figs, or vines or pomegranates or even
water to drink!” Moses and Aaron withdrew from the multitude
to the entrance of the Tent of Meeting and fell face down
and the glory of the Eternal appeared to them. And the
Eternal spoke to Moses saying: “Take the rod and gather
the assembly together, you and Aaron, your brother, and
tell the rock before their eyes to bring forth water:
and you will bring forth water for them from the rock
and give it to the congregation and their beasts to drink.“
Moses took the rod before the Eternal as He had commanded
him. And Moses and Aaron gathered the congregation together
before the rock and said to them: “Now listen, you rebels!
Will we bring forth water for you from this rock?” Moses
lifted his hand, struck the rock twice with his rod and
the water came forth abundantly and the community and
the beasts drank. But the Eternal said to Moses and Aaron:
“Because you did not believe in Me and you did not sanctify
Me in the eyes of the children of Israel, you will not
bring this congregation into the land that I have given
them.” These are the waters of Meriva because the children
of Israel quarreled with the Eternal and He was sanctified
by them.
Numbers 20: 1 –13
|
Henceforth,
this place of discord has become a meeting place and a place for research.
Many institutions are consolidated at Sde Boker under the double sign
of the desert and of the cultural heritage of Ben Gurion. An Arid
Zones Research Institute is entrusted with promoting models for the
development of the desert. The Ben Gurion Institute, which is charged
with the study and the dissemination of his writings, offers visitors
a multi-media program about the man and his work. The Environmental
Center includes a college and a high school where the curriculum emphasizes
a concern for the environment.
The
Ein Avdat spring flows in a luxuriant canyon of steep rocks. Badgers,
gazelles and all sorts of birds frequent this oasis. The site of Avdat
shelters a Nabatean city that dates back to the 3rd or 4th century,
which was probably the regional capital of Eboda or Oboda named after
a king, probably Oboda II (30 – 9 B.C.). Located at the crossroads
that join Petra in Trans-Jordan to Eilat and to Gaza, it controlled
the passage of the caravans from India and Arabia. Conquered in 106
by the Roman Emperor Trajan, it lost importance when the road between
Eilat and Damascus was laid out. Seized by the Emperor Diocletian
at the end of the 3rd century, it recovered some of its importance
and prosperity. Conquered by the Arabs in 634, it was to be gradually
deserted until it was completely abandoned in the 10th century. Today,
Avdat is one of the most interesting Nabatean sites in the Negev as
much for its archeological ruins from the periods of the Nabateans
(sepultures, houses, etc.), the Romans (a fortress) and the Byzantines
(thermal baths, churches, a monastery, a baptistery, etc.) as for
the reconstruction of the agricultural methods practiced in the desert
of Antiquity.
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