When he was born in Poland in 1886, there was no indication that David Grün would go on to greatness–let alone the singular greatness he achieved as David Ben-Gurion, the founding giant of the sovereign nation of Israel. So how did he go from an unremarkable youth in Tsarist Poland to a strident teenage Marxist Zionist political activist to the man who read Israel’s declaration of independence in May 1948? Listen to this episode of Recognizably Jewish to find out.

My primary source for this episode is Anita Shapira’s 2014 Ben-Gurion: Father of Modern Israel.

Today’s Yiddish phrase is: “Der ergster sholem iz beser vi di beste milkhome.”

Check out the Jewish Council for Public Affairs at https://jewishpublicaffairs.org/.