Part 2 of "David Ben-Gurion"

In Palestine

The first night David spent in Petah Tikvah, the Gateway of Hope, he couldn’t sleep for happiness. He was in Palestine! Breathing deeply, he smelled the corn, heard the donkey's bray and felt the breeze that rustled the leaves in the fruit orchards. Petah Tikvah was a small village with swampy, mosquito breeding ground. There were some fruit orchards, but it was definitely not the “land of milk and honey” that it had been when the first Israelites conquered the land under the leadership of Joshua. Finding work in Palestine in those days of 1906 was hard if you were an untrained immigrant. Finally, after persistent searching, David found a job.
“Here, fill this wheelbarrow with manure at the stables; take it down to the orchard and mulch the trees,” he was told. “And make sure you spread it thickly.”
David did as he was instructed, and day after day mulched the trees with manure. The swampy area he was working in was full of mosquitoes, and he soon came down with malaria.
“Go back to Plonsk,” the doctor told him. “This climate is too hard for you.”
But David wouldn’t go back even though his malaria came back every two weeks. For a year David hauled manure and fought malaria. Then he and a friend traveled north into the frontier area of Nazareth. There, with forty-six other young men and women, he labored to clear the rocky soil. They weren’t planning on living there long, only long enough to make the ground ready for a small settlement. David worked hard for two years, living with the others in five wooden huts. It was there that his malaria left him for good, and though the work was strenuous with not a lot of food or fresh water, he always looked back on it as a happy time. There was just one problem. The Arabs kept stealing animals and equipment. The workers themselves were too tired to keep guard at night, and so a group of Jewish men, Shomrim (watch-men), were appointed to each frontier village as guards.

In time, David made a short visit back to Russia to visit his father. On returning to Palestine, he was asked to help edit the first Hebrew newspaper in Jerusalem. His co-editor was Yitzhak Ben-Zvi, who was also from Russia.
“Hmm,” David murmured to himself as he paused before signing his name to his first article. “Green. That really doesn’t sound very Jewish or very strong. I need a new name. One that will identify me forever as a Jew. I know! From now on, I will be David Ben-Gurion, son of a lion-cub!”
And so it was that from that time on, David Green was known as “Ben-Gurion.”

Exile!

“This Jewish paper is going too far!” stormed a young man in the office of the Palestinian Turkish governor.
“In what way?” the older man leaned back in his chair and yawned.
“Haven’t you seen the last few papers, Sir?”
“No, I don’t pay much attention to those things, Ekber. It’s just a bunch of talk.”
“Don’t pay attention. . . just talk! Why!. . . why. . .” the younger man stammered in disbelief. “Why, in this paper,” the mentioned paper was shaken in the older man’s face, “He says that the Jews must form a political force!”
“Who says that?” demanded the older man sitting up suddenly with more interest. Seeing that he had bestirred the older man, Ekber continued, “It’s Ben Gurion this time, but it might be Ben Zvi next time. They both seem to be leaders of the same mind. Anyhow, it also says that they must strive for Jewish autonomy in Palestine!”
“What!” thundered the older man, now thoroughly aroused. “Why that’s treason! They dare to conspire against the mighty Ottoman Empire! Those miserable Jewish nobodies!” Pacing the room in anger, the older man continued his tirade against Ben Gurion, Ben Zvi, and all the other leaders of the Zionist movement. “Such men as those should not be allowed in Palestine! I won’t tolerate it! Ekber, order their arrest at once! We’ll soon put an end to all such troublemakers.”
Both men were apprehended and charged with conspiring against the Ottoman Empire in order to create a Jewish state. Their sentence? Exile from Palestine!