Ehud Barak, 1942-
As Israel’s 10th prime minister and last from the Labor Party from 1999 to 2001, Barak ended the occupation of southern Lebanon, participated in the 2000 Camp David talks, was rebuffed by Yasser Arafat in…
Yocheved Bat-Miriam, 1901-1980
Bat-Miriam, born in Belarus, is considered one of the four “mother poets” of modern Hebrew. Her 1937 book, “Eretz Yisrael,” examines the Land of Israel as a woman. She wrote many poems about biblical women…
David Ben-Gurion, 1886-1973
Ben-Gurion was Israel’s first prime minister and its leading political force for two decades. Born in Poland, he arrived in Palestine in 1907. He formed socialist-leaning Mapai, the dominant political party, in 1930 and became…
Yitzhak Ben-Zvi, 1884-1963
Before becoming Israel’s second and longest-serving president in 1952, Ukraine-born Ben-Zvi co-founded Yishuv self-defense groups Bar Giora and Hashomer. He became a Poalei Zion leader after immigrating to Palestine in 1907. He was prominent in…
Naftali Bennett, 1972-
Israel’s 13th prime minister, Bennett was born in Haifa to U.S. immigrants. He was an IDF Sayeret Matkal commando and a software entrepreneur. He became the leader of the settler-supported Jewish Home party in 2012…
Ralph Bunche, 1904-1971
Bunche, an American diplomat, received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1950 for brokering the armistice agreements between Israel and four Arab neighbors in 1949. He served in 1947 with the U.N. Special Committee on Palestine,…
