David Ben-Gurion on God’s Promises to His People: Strength and Peace – One Given, the Other, Coming

July 22, 1971

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David Ben-Gurion on God’s Promises to His People: Strength and Peace – One Given, the Other, Coming
Autograph Letter Signed
1 page | SMC 664

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  • David Ben-Gurion

    Background

    Born before he had a homeland, Ben-Gurion was a leader in a war before he had an army, and became a statesman before he had a state. Long convinced, then, of things yet unseen, here he says that although peace with the present government in Egypt is very doubtful, Psalms tells that God has promised his people two things:

    “God will give strength to His people, God will bless His people with peace" - The first promise was already given; the second one - not yet, but it will come.

    Such, then, was the faith that gave Ben-Gurion, and gives still, substance to hope.
    Autograph Letter Signed (“D. Ben-Gurion”), in English, 1 page, octavo, Sdeh Boker, July 22, 1971. To Kenneth Triem in Tucson, Arizona.
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    No. 33

    Sdeh Boker; 22.7.71

    Dear Mr Kenneth Triem

    I have your letter of May 20
    Peace with the present government in Egypt is very doubtful. 
    Ac[c]ording to [in Hebrew, the word for "Psalms"] Tehilim God has promised to his people two things: 
    [In Hebrew] "Hashem oz L'Amo yiten, Hashem yevaraech et amo bashalom"  
    "    God will give strength to His people, God will bless His people with peace" - The first promise was already given; the second one - not yet, but it will come.

    Yours

    D. Ben-Gurion

    To
    Kenneth Triem
    1300 Wheatridge Drive
    Tucson, Arizona 85704
    U.S.A.

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    Historic Context
    David Ben-Gurion

    Private David Ben-Gurion, a volunteer in the Jewish Legion, 1918: Wikimedia Commons

    David Ben-Gurion

    David Ben-Gurion (1886-1973) was the first prime minister of the State of Israel, and one of the country’s main founders. David Gru¨¨n was born in 1886 in Plonsk, Poland, then part of the Russian Empire. His father was a member of the Zionist Hibbat Zion movement, and his mother passed away when David was eleven years old. When Ben-Gurion was fourteen, he helped establish the religious Zionist youth movement Ezra with two friends. He joined the Poalei Zion workers movement in 1905 whilst a student at Warsaw University. The following year, he emigrated to the Ottoman Mutasafirate of Jerusalem, working in his idealized role of the agricultural laborer. In 1911, Ben-Gurion went to Thessaloniki to study Turkish in order to enroll in law school in Constantinople the following year. Three years later, in 1915, he was deported from the Ottoman Empire for his Zionist activities and made his way to New York, where he met and married his Russian-immigrant wife, Paula, in 1917. Shortly after his marriage, Ben-Gurion enlisted in the Jewish Legion to help liberate Palestine from the Turks. In 1920, he and some colleagues founded the Histadrut as a forerunner of a Jewish government, and actively lobbied for more Jewish immigration - especially from America. By 1930, various labor organizations and movements had banded together to form Mapai, with Ben-Gurion at its helm. Five years later, Ben-Gurion was also the head of the Zionist Executive and the Jewish Agency. Ben-Gurion famously read the Israeli Declaration of Independence in May of 1948 and became Israel’s first Prime Minister and Minister of Defence. He served as Prime minister from 1948-1953 and again from 1955 until he resigned in 1963. Ben-Gurion retired from public life in 1970 and died in 1973. He is interred on the grounds of his home in Sde Boker, in the south of Israel.

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