Editing David Ben-Gurion (section)

=== Childhood and education ===
David Ben-Gurion was born in [[Płońsk]] in [[Congress Poland]]{{Emdash}}then part of the [[Russian Empire]], to [[Polish Jewish]] parents. His father, Avigdor Grün, was a ''pokątny doradca'' (secret adviser), navigating his clients through the often corrupt Imperial legal system.<ref>[[Shabtai Teveth|Teveth, Shabtai]] (1987) ''Ben-Gurion. The Burning Ground. 1886–1948''. Houghton Mifflin. {{ISBN|978-0-395-35409-4}}. p. 7</ref> Following the publication of [[Theodore Herzl]]'s ''[[Der Judenstaat]]'' in 1896 Avigdor co-founded a [[Zionist]] group called ''Beni Zion''{{Emdash}}Children of Zion. In 1900 it had a membership of 200.<ref>[[Tom Segev|Segev, Tom]] (2018–2019 translation [[Haim Watzman]]) ''A State at Any Cost. The Life of David Ben-Gurion''. Apollo. {{ISBN|978-1-78954-463-3}}. pp. 24, 25</ref> David was the youngest of three boys with an older and younger sister. His mother, Scheindel (Broitman),<ref>{{cite web|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=m7dtAAAAMAAJ&q=David+Ben-Gurion+Broitman|title=Avotaynu: The International Review of Jewish Genealogy|date=31 August 2018|publisher=G. Mokotoff|access-date=31 August 2018|via=Google Books}}</ref> died of [[sepsis]] following a [[stillbirth]] in 1897. It was her eleventh pregnancy.<ref>Segev (2019). pp. 20, 21</ref> Two years later his father remarried.<ref>Teveth (1987). p. 3</ref> Ben-Gurion's birth certificate, found in Poland in 2003, indicated that he had a twin brother who died shortly after birth.<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/ben-gurion-may-have-been-a-twin-1.12453|title=Ben-Gurion may have been a twin|newspaper=Haaretz|date=18 April 2003|author=Tsahar Rotem}}</ref> Between the ages of five and 13 Ben-Gurion attended five different [[Cheder|heders]] as well as compulsory Russian classes. Two of the heders were 'modern' and taught in [[Hebrew language|Hebrew]] rather than [[Yiddish]]. His father could not afford to enrol Ben-Gurion in Płońsk's [[beth midrash]] so Ben-Gurion's formal education ended after his [[bar mitzvah]].<ref>Teveth (1987). pp. 12–13</ref> At the age of 14 he and two friends formed a youth club, ''Ezra'', promoting Hebrew studies and emigration to the Holy Land. The group ran Hebrew classes for local youth and in 1903 collected funds for the victims of the [[Kishinev pogrom]]. One biographer writes that ''Ezra'' had 150 members within a year.<ref name="Teveth 1987 p.14">Teveth (1987) p. 14</ref> A different source estimates the group never had more than "several dozen" members.<ref>Segev (2019). p. 23</ref>

In 1904 Ben-Gurion moved to [[Warsaw]] where he hoped to enrol in the Warsaw Mechanical-Technical School founded by [[Hipolit Wawelberg]]. He did not have sufficient qualifications to matriculate and took work teaching Hebrew in a Warsaw heder. Inspired by [[Tolstoy]] he had become a vegetarian.<ref name="Teveth 1987 p.14" /> He became involved in Zionist politics and in October 1905 he joined the clandestine Social-Democratic Jewish Workers' Party{{Emdash}}''[[Poale Zion|Poalei Zion]]''. Two months later he was the delegate from Płońsk at a local conference.<ref>Teveth (1987). pp. 28, 30</ref> While in Warsaw the [[Russian Revolution (1905)|Russian Revolution of 1905]] broke out and he was in the city during the clampdown that followed; he was arrested twice, the second time he was held for two weeks and only released with the help of his father. In December 1905 he returned to Płońsk as a full-time Poalei Zion operative. There he worked to oppose the anti-Zionist [[General Jewish Labour Bund|Bund]] who were trying to establish a base. He also organised a strike over working conditions amongst garment workers. He was known to use intimidatory tactics, such as extorting money from wealthy Jews at gunpoint to raise funds for Jewish workers.<ref>Segev (2019) pp. Warsaw 32, 35, college rejection 41, 1905 revolution 43, Poalie Zion 46, prison 47, labor boss 49</ref><ref>Teveth (1987). pp. revolution 25, Poale Zion 28,31, gunman 30</ref><ref name ="Shatz">Adam Shatz, [https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v41/n20/adam-shatz/we-are-conquerors  "We Are Conquerors"], ''[[London Review of Books]]'' Vol. 41 No. 20, 24 October 2019</ref>

Ben-Gurion discussed his hometown in his memoirs, saying:

<blockquote>For many of us, anti-Semitic feeling had little to do with our dedication [to Zionism]. I personally never suffered anti-Semitic persecution. Płońsk was remarkably free of it ... Nevertheless, and I think this very significant, it was Płońsk that sent the highest proportion of Jews to Eretz Israel from any town in Poland of comparable size. We emigrated not for negative reasons of escape but for the positive purpose of rebuilding a homeland ... Life in Płońsk was peaceful enough. There were three main communities: Russians, Jews and Poles. ... The number of Jews and Poles in the city were roughly equal, about five thousand each. The Jews, however, formed a compact, centralized group occupying the innermost districts whilst the Poles were more scattered, living in outlying areas and shading off into the peasantry. Consequently, when a gang of Jewish boys met a Polish gang the latter would almost inevitably represent a single suburb and thus be poorer in fighting potential than the Jews who even if their numbers were initially fewer could quickly call on reinforcements from the entire quarter. Far from being afraid of them, they were rather afraid of us. In general, however, relations were amicable, though distant.<ref>Memoirs: David Ben-Gurion (1970), p. 36.</ref></blockquote>

In autumn of 1906 he left Poland to go to [[Eretz Israel|Palestine]]. He travelled with his sweetheart Rachel Nelkin and her mother, as well as [[Shlomo Zemach]] his comrade from ''Ezra''. His voyage was funded by his father.<ref>Teveth (1987). pp. 35, 36 Shlomo Zemach, Rachel Nelkin + her mother</ref>