BEN-GURION: The Biography of an Man

There is no doubt that David Ben-Gurion, the Polish born, Israel National, is an extraordinary man. Nor is there any question that Robert St. John, author, correspondent, and journalist, is a biographer of unique acuteness and understanding. Into his portrait of the small, bristling, totally dedicated Prime Minister of Israel, is woven a comprehensive history of the birth, growth and development of political zionism. For the life of Ben-Gurion from its beginning in 1886 was witness to extremes in the Jewish plight unlike those ever recorded in history: the pogroms of Europe, the mass execution of millions of Polish, German, and Austrian Jews, the violent opposition to Jewish statehood by the Arabs, the betrayal at a time of crisis by the British, and the threat of military Russian aggression. Throughout these harrowing events the indomitable will of the Jews pressed forward to survive, and it was that will taken to the thousandth part that propelled Ben-Gurion, in his selfless crusade as their leader. Without sentimentalizing, Robert St. John reveals an equally vivid side of Ben-Gurion's nature,- his insatiable scholarly-curiosity, his profound love of his family, his militant insistence on democratic methods. There are glimpses of the seventy-year old statesman standing on his head as he pursues a regime of exercise, of his warm friendship with a twenty-four-year-old. ""Sabra"" girl, of his ing grief at the suicide of his Nehemiah, a young man who lived his brief life in total love of Ben-Gurion. A sane, informative, and powerful study by the author of such incisive works on contemporary affairs as Through Malan's Shalem Means Peace, It's Always Tomorrow of a man, who unflinching and single minded, gave of his titanic, energy in order to bring to fruition the words of the prophecy; ""This year we are slaves, then we shall be free...Next year we shall be in Jerusalem.