Avigdor Ben Gurion

Father of David Ben-Gurion - first Prime Minister & Minister of Defense of the State of Israel.

From an English translation of Sefer Plonsk ve-ha-seviva [Memorial Book of Plonsk and Vicinity], Published in Tel Aviv, by Former Residents of Plonsk in Israel, 1963. Source: JewishGen.org. From the chapter "My Youth in Plonsk" by David Ben-Gurion.

"The relationship of the Poles around Plonsk with my father was one of honor and trust. He handled their legal affairs. As a lawyer he was honored also by the Russian rulers in the city, such as the Justice of the Peace.

The Polish language was always heard in my father's house because my father's customers were mainly Poles, farmers and land owners from around Plonsk who came to him with legal questions and hired him to handle their legal problems and to represent them in the court in Plonsk and in the regional court in Malava.

After the First World War all the members of my family who were still alive came on Aliyah – my father, my two brothers and two sisters. My father came in 1925. His license to practice law, which he had since 1878, had been rescinded in 1920, after Poland gained its independence from Russia and there were increasing waves of anti–Semitism in Poland. He then became the secretary of the Jewish community until he came on Aliyah. He then worked as a book keeper for Solel Boneh until he reached the age of 80. He died at the age of 86, in my sister's home in the Borochov neighborhood, on the 13th of May, 1942 (the 26th of Iyar, 5702)."

Arrived in Lodz on 5-Oct-1917