David Ben-Gurion: Politics and Leadership in Israel

First published in 2004. It may well be that genius begins where fear ends: not to be afraid to question what is known, not to be afraid to be original. David Ben-Gurion did not try to imitate anyone...He was endowed with a mind that sought out whats was new and was capable of penetrating the deepest recesses. First and foremost, he challenged every Jew who believed it was the fate of Jews to live in the Diaspora, and he believed that the Jews could be a nation of farmers, industrialists, soldiers, pioneers, and not only scientists and intellectuals. He decided that the time had come to establish a Jewish state, yet once it had been founded, he was not satisfied- it must be an exemplary state, a chosen state.

DR. RONALD ZWEIG (Editor): Senior Lecturer in Jewish History, Tel Aviv University; Head of the Institute for Research in the History of Zionism. Author: Britain and Palestine During the Second World War; German Reparations and the Jewish World. Editor (since 1983): Studies in Zionism.