David Ben-Gurion
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David Ben-Gurion was the primary national founder of the State of Israel as well as its first prime minister. 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 the movement for an independent Jewish state in Mandatory Palestine.
Poalei Zion's "Ezra" group in Plonsk, 1905. David Grün (David Ben-Gurion) in the first row, third on the right
Ben-Gurion with Rachel Nelkin and members of Ezra on eve of their departure to Palestine, August 1906; his father and step-mother sitting in the windows
Ben-Gurion working at Rishon Lezion winery (front row, 6th from right), 1908
The Israeli Declaration of Independence, formally the Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel, was proclaimed on 14 May 1948 by David Ben-Gurion, the Executive Head of the World Zionist Organization, Chairman of the Jewish Agency for Palestine, and soon to be first Prime Minister of Israel. It declared the establishment of a Jewish state in Eretz-Israel, to be known as the State of Israel, which would come into effect on termination of the British Mandate at midnight that day. The event is celebrated annually in Israel as Independence Day, a national holiday on 5 Iyar of every year according to the Hebrew calendar.
On the day of its proclamation, Eliahu Epstein wrote to Harry S. Truman that the state had been proclaimed "within the frontiers approved by the General Assembly of the United Nations in its Resolution of November 29, 1947".
A celebratory crowd outside the Tel Aviv Museum, located in 16 Rothschild Boulevard, to hear the Declaration
David Ben-Gurion declaring independence beneath a large portrait of Theodor Herzl, founder of modern Zionism