Ben-Gurion

Father of Modern Israel (Jewish Lives)

By: Anita Shapira

Narrated by: Peter Lerman

David Ben-Gurion cast a great shadow during his lifetime, and his legacy continues to be sharply debated to this day. There have been many books written about the life and accomplishments of the Zionist icon and founder of modern Israel, but this new biography by eminent Israeli historian Anita Shapira strives to get to the core of the complex man who would become the face of the new Jewish nation. Shapira tells the Ben-Gurion story anew, focusing especially on the period after 1948, during the first years of statehood.

As a result of her extensive research and singular access to Ben-Gurion’s personal archives, the author provides fascinating and original insights into his personal qualities and those that defined his political leadership. As Shapira writes, “Ben-Gurion liked to argue that history is made by the masses, not individuals. But just as Lenin brought the Bolshevik Revolution into the world and Churchill delivered a fighting Britain, so with Ben-Gurion and the Jewish state. He knew how to create and exploit the circumstances that made its birth possible.” Shapira’s portrait reveals the flesh-and-blood man who more than anyone else realized the Israeli state.

The book is published by Yale University Press. The audiobook is published by University Press Audiobooks.

©2014 Anita Shapira (P)2024 Redwood Audiobooks

Critic reviews

"The most intimate yet unflinching portrait to date..." (New York Times Book Review)

"Sheds light on the inner life of the man whom fellow Zionist leader Berl Katznelson called 'history’s gift to the Jewish people.'" (Wall Street Journal)

"A brief but full-color biography of an essential leader." (Kirkus Reviews)

Great figure of Jewish history

Excellent story of one of the most important figures in the history of the Jewish people, as well as one of the greatest leaders of the 20th century.

Comprehensive but not detailed enough

Comprehensive yet not detailed as I would have expected approaching the life of one of the major figures of Israel. I missed the most was the way he was thinking and approaching problems and major difficulties in politics and at war as well as at times of peace. It fills it as if this book is quite superficial and reading. Wikipedia would overlap 50% off the text presented in this book yet I didn’t find any other books in Audible about the life of Ben Gurion.