David Ben-Gurion and Yitzhak Ben-Zvi: A Comparative Study of Leadership Styles
Keywords:
David Ben-Gurion, Yitzhak Ben-Zvi, Leadership, Prime Minister of Israel, President of the State of Israel, World Zionist Movement, Yishuv institutions, Jewish leadership in the mid-twentieth centuryAbstract
David Ben-Gurion and Yitzhak Ben-Zvi first met Palestine in 1907, in the first stages of their joint political activity. Ben-Zvi was commonly recognized as the senior of the two. Fifty-six years later, when Ben-Zvi passed away, he was the president of Israel, a prestigious but mostly symbolic office, while Ben-Gurion was the undisputed leader of the State of Israel, serving as prime minister and defense minister.
The article presents a comparative survey of the political biography of the two men, and asks when, how and why the change in the leadership hierarchy took place.
The article examines where each of them emerged as a leader – abroad or in Palestine; the nature and power of the institutions that each headed (World Zionist organs or Yishuv institutions); places of residence (Tel Aviv or Jerusalem); areas of interest and activity; and character and personality differences. The article concludes with a discussion on historiography and commemoration.
The lives of the two leaders are viewed against the background of events in the Yishuv. The author claims that some of the insights and definitions derived from the analysis are relevant for other phenomena in the Yishuv and the fledgling state, particularly the modes of leadership that emerged in the first half of the twentieth century.
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