David Ben-Gurion

WWI-dated ALS in Hebrew, one page both sides, 8.5 x 11, Minkin Brothers letterhead, 1916. Letter to Yitzhak Ben-Zvi regarding Zionist matters and his wish to be left alone while he writes his memoirs. In part: "I hope you read my letter…concerning my opinion about our participation as Palestinian workers at the International Communist Party…I am happy the party decided about the edition of the newspaper but I am not happy about the edition members because the lack of harmony between them…I am now writing my memories and the friends disturb and bother me during my work. They come not to let me alone and I prefer that they leave me in peace. They come not to let me alone and I prefer that they leave me in peace, but I have to be polite…I am tired from this game." In very good condition, with overall creasing, and splitting to the ends of the intersecting folds. With the advent of WWI and the anti-Zionist persecutions by the Turkish administration, Ben-Gurion and Ben-Zvi, both law students in Constantinople, were arrested and accused of conspiring in order to establish a Jewish state. They were exiled to Egypt in 1915 and later that year proceeded to the United States to begin preparations for Jewish settlements in Palestine immediately following the war. Ben-Gurion and Ben-Zvi were among the signers of Israel's Declaration of Independence on May 14, 1948. Roughly four years later, Ben-Zvi was elected President of Israel, with his tenure from 1952 until his death in 1963 cementing him as the nation's longest-serving president.