Levi Eshkol (25 October 1895 – 26 February 1969) was Prime Minister of Israel from 26 June 1963 to 26 February 1969, succeeding David Ben-Gurion and preceding Yigal Allon. Eshkol was one of the founders of the Israeli Labor Party, and he served as Defense Minister from 1963 to 1967 and Finance Minister from 1952 to 1963 in addition to serving as Prime Minister.
Biography[]
Levi Scholnik was born in Orativ, Kiev Governorate, Russian Empire (now Oratovo, Ukraine) in 1895, and he went to Palestine in 1914 and became a farm laborer. When the British entered Palestine in 1917, he enlisted in the Jewish Legion. With David Ben-Gurion and Yitzhak Ben-Zvi he was a founder of the Histadrut (General Federation of Jewish Labor), as well as of the Mapai (Israel Workers' Party) in 1929. He rose to prominence mainly as Ben-Gurion's lieutenant. As such, he became Minister for Agriculture and Development in 1951 and Minister of Finance in 1952. He subsequently presided over a period of considerable economic growth. Despite successfully leading Israel through the Six-Day War as Prime Minister, he was relatively conciliatory towards the other Arab states, and he refused to annex formally the occupied territories in the West Bank, apart from East Jerusalem. Just before his death, he managed to reunite various socialist groups to form the Israeli Labor Party.
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