“A Great Man” 

David Ben-Gurion with Yigal Allon and Yitzhak Rabin in the Negev, during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. Photograph Source: National Photo Collection of Israel – CC BY-SA 3.0

Going through my mother’s papers sometime after her death in 1985, I found an essay by the son of a family friend titled “David Ben-Gurion: A Great Man.” Ben-Gurion was the first prime minister of Israel. The essay was completed as a requirement for the traditional course of classes that the boy attended sometime in the 1960s in preparation for his bar mitzvah...