‘Retirement home’ or ‘symbol of purity and nobility’? David Ben-Gurion’s changing perception of the Israeli presidency

ABSTRACT

David Ben-Gurion played a pivotal role in shaping Israel’s political institutions, yet scholarly literature concerning his views on the Israeli presidency is notably lacking. Traditionally, his perception of the presidency has been portrayed as deeming it ‘unnecessary’. However, such portrayals are limited, focusing on isolated moments rather than encompassing his entire political career. This research aims to address this gap by examining Ben-Gurion’s relationship with presidential candidacies from 1949 to 1963. Through this analysis, it seeks to elucidate the evolution of his perceptions, articulations, and conceptualizations of the presidency in Israel over time.

KEYWORDS:

• David Ben-Gurion
• Chaim Weizmann
• Yitzhak Ben-Zvi
• Zalman Shazar
• Albert Einstein
• Israeli presidency

On 3 December 1947, about a week after the United Nations General Assembly adopted Resolution 181 on the partition of Mandatory Palestine to two states – one Jewish, the other Arab – Mapai Party Center met to discuss preparations for establishing the State of Israel. At the meeting, David Ben-Gurion, soon to become Israel’s first prime minister, stated that ‘many things are missing’ and started enumerating them one by one:

There is no name, no capital, no government, no national anthem, no constitution, no statute book, no budget, no currency, no coinage, no army, no police, no airports, no state services and bureaucracies, no internal or foreign policy, no ambassadors, and much more.¹

This long list never mentioned the presidency, and for good reason. In Israel’s early years, Ben-Gurion perceived it as a redundant institution. While some sought to grant the president broad powers, he dismissed the idea altogether since ‘there will be no two governments’.² To a considerable extent, he viewed the institution as a reward for the Zionist movement’s long-time leader, Chaim Weizmann, and formulated its powers accordingly.³ Hence, what largely shaped the essence of the presidency was the relationship between these two personalities.⁴

Yet viewing Ben-Gurion’s attitude to the institution during the Weizmann era as epitomising his overall perception of the institution largely overlooks his comprehensive viewpoint. What qualities did Ben-Gurion believe the president should have when he offered the post to Albert Einstein? How did he view the president’s functions when advocating Yitzhak Ben-Zvi for office? Why did he object to the election of a religious president? And what were Zalman Shazar’s qualities that led Ben-Gurion to insist (during the 1963 Knesset election of a new president) that if Shazar did not run for office he would put himself up for election?⁵ In short, was the presidency a ‘retirement Home’ or ‘a symbol of purity and nobility’, as Ben-Gurion called the institution in the course of one month?⁶ This discrepancy requires an explanation and may indicate an ambivalence towards symbolic institutions and their place in Israeli democracy.

This article examines Ben-Gurion’s behaviour during presidential election campaigns, including his attitude to the various presidential candidates, in an attempt to explain the vicissitudes in his perception of the institution and its role. It argues that two interrelated factors underlay Ben-Gurion’s attempts to curb the presidency’s status and powers during Israel’s early years. The first, which has been expanded upon in the research literature, is his power struggle with Weizmann and the attendant desire to reduce his political influence.⁷ The second reason, and the focus of this article, is that Ben-Gurion’s initial attitude to the presidency reflected his desire to be the only political figure with sufficient power to shape the contours of the nascent state as part of the identity struggles of the time. This political outlook, rather than the perception of the presidency as inherently redundant as is commonly ascribed to him, underlay Ben-Gurion’s attempt to prevent the institution from active involvement in shaping Israel’s collective identity during the state-formation/nation-building phase.⁸

Ben-Gurion’s stance upon laying the presidency’s foundations

Israel’s political institutions, upon the establishment of the state, did not result from debates or deliberations but were a direct continuation of pre-state institutions and their principles of representation; and while the nascent state’s political system was parliamentary rather than presidential, it did create a presidential role. Various committees that drafted the legal infrastructure of the new state’s ruling institutions referred to the presidency, its powers and status, by exploring the German and Italian presidencies, as well as the British monarchy.

Even when the presidency’s format was yet unclear, Weizmann’s candidacy came across as the obvious one. Having led the Zionist movement for over two decades and played a key role in the attainment of the Balfour Declaration, Weizmann’s long-standing pro-Western orientation put him in good stead in Western chancelleries and Jewries, especially in the US, something that decisively contributed to his and Ben-Gurion’s intersection of interests. Feeling obliged to offer Weizmann a significant official role in the nascent state, yet reluctant to give him a major role in shaping its sociopolitical contours, Ben-Gurion created the presidency in a way that would ‘mummify Weizmann while still alive’ by casting symbolism and ceremony into the mix while leaving power and influence out.⁹ As he told the Provisional State Council, soon to become the Knesset, on 16 May 1948: ‘If there is a living person who deserves the right to be president of the Jewish state, it is Dr. Chaim Weizmann’.¹⁰

At the provisional government’s discussions about the president’s powers within the transitional constitution, Ben-Gurion revealed his perception of the presidency as a purely symbolic institution. The president does not have executive powers and does not constitute a governmental arm, not even an implicit one. Separation of powers between the government and the president was also reflected in Ben-Gurion’s objection to the prime minister reporting to the president, which, he argued, did not exist in any parliamentary democracy. In practice, beneath his resort to constitutional comparisons lay Ben-Gurion’s intention to take the wind out of Weizmann’s sails (of being involved in administrative matters). He further objected to the word ‘appointing’ concerning the president’s role in appointing delegates and preferred that it be written that the president ‘signed’ these appointments. He also stressed the purely formal nature of the president’s authority to sign laws: even if the president did not sign, the law would be published and take effect. ‘As for the president’s authority’, he stated,

In my opinion, this function is anachronistic, and there is no need for it … After all, the presidency is unnecessary and will only cause a waste of money and confusion. It is a corollary of the past. Yet there is a unique situation here: in my opinion, Dr. Weizmann deserves to be Head of State and deserves this honor … As a matter of fact this is a redundant institution, and therefore the presidential duties should be minimally discussed, as much as possible, rather than overly exert ourselves in the matter.¹¹

Ben-Gurion’s goal was to concentrate state powers around sovereign rather than partisan institutions, which he aspired to be executive rather than symbolic. He didn’t only seek to build a state but also a nation, to reshape Jewish society with sovereign tools. A ritual system of ceremonies is how one builds a nation, and it is not for naught that Ben-Gurion reduced Weizmann’s symbolic capital within these ceremonies. In the span of one year (September 1948–November 1949), there were four major ceremonies centred on Weizmann, revolving around his return to Israel, his visit to Jerusalem, and his 75^th birthday. Ben-Gurion was to be found in none of them (during the celebrations for Weizmann’s birthday he was on vacation in Tiberias). Ben-Gurion even missed Weizmann’s inauguration on 17 February 1949, having fallen ill.¹² He also opposed suggestions to add the president’s signature to the Declaration of Independence in a clear attempt at symbolic diminution of Weizmann’s position and status.

The interpersonal struggle between Ben-Gurion and Weizmann shaped the nature of the presidency and fenced it in its symbolism, devoid of any executive powers. To a certain extent, even Weizmann’s symbolic authority was often lacking. For example, he awarded Ben-Gurion the mandate to form the first government in February 1949 in a phone conversation rather than in a grand ceremony at the presidential residence. Such a ceremony (which would become the standard in Israeli politics) might have given Weizmann the appearance of superiority in authority and status that Ben-Gurion was anxious to avoid, and he did so on grounds of alleged illness (a pretext he used whenever he sought to evade something).¹³ Weizmann’s life journey ended with the establishment of the State of Israel, ‘but he lived on for four and a half more years’, Golani and Reinharz described the first president’s helplessness during his term in office.¹⁴

The 1952 presidential election and the presidency’s redefinition

About one month after his re-election in November 1951, Weizmann became medically incapacitated and Knesset Speaker Yosef Sprinzak assumed the position of acting president, serving in this capacity for a year. During that time, the president’s role was minor, almost marginal, being hardly felt at the national level beyond Sprinzak’s added title. Yet while this gave Ben-Gurion a golden opportunity to prepare public opinion for the abolition the presidency, there is no evidence that he attempted to do so. On the contrary, when during the 1952 presidential election the weekly Ha’olam Ha’ze proposed abolishing the presidency and unifying it with the premiership, sending Ben-Gurion a letter in an attempt to gauge his position, the prime minister failed to respond.¹⁵ It is possible that his silence indicated the realisation that the presidency posed no threat to the government’s authority, and that it had, moreover, captured the hearts of the masses.

Weizmann’s death in November 1952 raised the need to elect a new president, and the absence of a natural candidate honed the question of the president’s character and qualifications. When the candidate search began, Ben-Gurion and Justice Minister Pinhas Rosen exchanged letters with mutual proposals that each would serve as president. Rosen considered the offer and declined due to its sheer lack of powers.¹⁶ The discourse between the two is particularly interesting since Ben-Gurion elaborated on the presidential powers in accordance with two possible models: the American – where the president has executive powers, and the British – where the president (king) serves as a symbol. Between the two, Ben-Gurion preferred the British to the American model and rejected Rosen’s desire to mix them: ‘It is illogical and inefficient and could complicate the matters of government’.¹⁷

As chairperson of the Progressive Party, Rosen was neither a member of Mapai nor part of its then-ruling coalition. Indeed, there were deliberations within Mapai whether to place one of its own in office or to support a president from outside its ranks. Of the various arguments raised in the discussions, the one made by Foreign Minister Sharett had the greatest impact on Ben-Gurion, namely that the president was not just a domestic political figure but one of significant influence over Diaspora Jewry. Hence, the incumbent had to be a bipartisan figure of international stature who would be amenable to the largest and most influential Diaspora community in the US.¹⁸ Ben-Gurion warmly adopted this argument, as vividly illustrated by his approach to Albert Einstein.

Viewing Einstein as ‘the genius of the generation and humanity’, by offering him the presidency Ben-Gurion sought to underscore Israel’s affinity with science and humanity and to link the presidential function and those of science and wisdom.¹⁹ It also served as a link between Weizmann, a well-known chemist who made a notable contribution to the Entente’s WWI war effort, and Einstein, thus creating a continuum that could enhance and stabilise the presidency. Above all, offering the presidency to a world-renowned Jewish figure who did not hold Israeli citizenship highlighted the affinity Ben-Gurion sought to create between the presidency and the Jewish Diaspora, as suggested by Sharett, and its perceived role as door opener to world leaders, especially in the US.

Einstein’s decline of the offer heralded a shift in Ben-Gurion’s perception of the presidency from an outward- to an inward-looking post: from a president who could boost Israel’s international standing, like Weizmann and Einstein, to one whose role and status were primarily domestic, like Ben-Zvi and Shazar. And by way of making this shift, he rejected the attempt to promote a religious presidential candidate.²⁰

‘Aaron Barth [Bank Leumi CEO and one of the two proposed religious candidates] is undoubtedly one of the most beautiful personalities in the country’, Ben-Gurion told a Mapai meeting. ‘But … I don’t think it will be good to have a religious president’. In his view, religion was not a consolidating component of national life but a tool in the hands of the state; hence it was inappropriate for a religious person to head the state, since ‘willingly or unwillingly, religion and rabbis will overpower the life of the state’.²¹ The president should represent the entire spectrum of Judaism and all Jews, Ben-Gurion reasoned, whereas a religious president would represent only a specific narrow segment. There was also the fear that such a president, through his symbolic power, would influence the shape of the nation in a way that was incompatible with Ben-Gurion’s worldview.

A longtime colleague and collaborator, Ben-Zvi neatly fitted Ben-Gurion’s intention to use the presidency’s symbolic stature in shaping the nation without challenging the government’s role and powers. On 16 November 1952, he met Ben-Zvi and offered him the post ‘in the name of Moshe (Sharett) and mine’, and ten days later defended this candidacy against objections within Mapai.

Addressing a special meeting of Mapai’s political committee, convened on November 26 to select the party’s presidential candidate, Ben-Gurion sought to redefine the president’s role. Instead of discussing a change of presidential executive powers, he focused on a change in the presidential symbolic authority. While Weizmann’s election reflected the nation’s appreciation of his mammoth contribution to the establishment of the state, the next president’s election would institutionalise the post’s great symbolic meaning of representing the continuity of Jewish generations. ‘It is not only a symbol of the State of Israel, of the million-and-a-half people who live here, or even of the 11 million Jews worldwide, but of all generations’, he told his colleagues, before enumerating the president’s necessary qualities:

He should symbolize the ingathering of the exiles, which is the state’s supreme mission at the moment. He should symbolize purity and personal nobility. He should be an intellectual … When I examine who epitomizes these qualities to perfection, I see before me the personality of Yitzhak Ben-Zvi.²²

This emphasis on a president whose qualities and character would contribute to ingathering of the exiles reflected Ben-Gurion’s perception of the presidency’s potential to imbue values through its symbolic power. As such, this symbolic institution served as a tool in the hands of the state to produce that same sovereign consciousness Ben-Gurion sought to propagate.²³

The presidency and the weakening of Mamlachtiut

By the time of the 1962 presidential elections, Ben-Zvi’s health had deteriorated to the extent that his doctors recommended bed rest; but due to pressure from Ben-Gurion and his wife, Rachel Yanait Ben-Zvi, he agreed to run for a third term. Further deterioration in his medical condition in April 1963 sparked speculations about his successor, and the campaign officially started after his death on April 23. Golda Meir, Yaakov Dori, Pinhas Rosen, Zalman Shazar, Kadish Luz, and even Yanait Ben-Zvi were all considered worthy candidates.²⁴ Each name involved deep-rooted political views, ideology, status, partisanship, ambition for distinct symbolism, and more. Ben-Gurion avoided discussing one candidate or another and actively worked about a week after Ben-Zvi’s death to select a candidate he considered worthy. Hence, his arguments in favour of Shazar provide the best indicator of his perceptions of the presidency at that point in time.

Ben-Gurion’s ambition to make Shazar president went against the position of various Mapai factions to appoint Knesset Speaker Kadish Luz to office. One Ben-Gurion biographer linked the PM’s effort in favour of Shazar to his desire to enforce his authority on his party.²⁵ Indeed, at the end of April, Ben-Gurion met Shazar and offered him the post. As Shazar asked for some time to consider the offer, Ben-Gurion told him that the country was endangered by the lack of a presidential candidate, since ‘all sorts of people will jump the bandwagon – Revisionists and others’. That statement is significant as it indicates the importance Ben-Gurion ascribed to fielding the position with a person who fitted his ideology. If in the 1952 presidential election he was willing to entertain the idea of Einstein’s candidacy in contrast to Mapai’s policy, or even to seek to appoint Rosen – the quintessential representative of the bourgeoisie – he now genuinely feared lest the opposition’s candidate would be appointed. So much so that he threatened to put himself up for office (one biographer attributed this threat to Ben-Gurion’s contemplation of retirement).²⁶

There was another side to the ledger. Bareli and Kedar ascribed Ben-Gurion’s reluctance to leave the presidency vacant to the weakening of the Mamlachtiut (‘statism’/republicanism) ethos he had laboriously forged during Israel’s first decade as a ‘stabilizing factor that moderates socio-cultural and political-ideological controversies’. Hence, his pursuit of Shazar’s appointment was effectively ‘the final battle of Ben-Gurion’s Mamlachtiut’ that sought to forge the country’s civil identity via symbolic institutes.²⁷

By way of achieving this goal, Ben-Gurion sought to ‘adorn’ the presidency with a candidate whose personality was in line with the spirit that the institution was to reflect. Among other things, that person had to be a scholar who was deeply familiar with the history of the Jewish people and closely connected to Jewish tradition. In Shazar, these qualities related to his Hasidic background and ability to speak ‘in the language of tradition’, on the one hand, and his past position as Acting Chairman of the Jewish Agency, which made him a household name among Jewish communities worldwide:

He is renowned for comprehensively representing all of Judaism - traditional and free alike. He is well versed in its entire history, and his name means something to Diaspora Jewry.²⁸

This argument was similar to that made in 1952 in defence of Einstein’s candidacy, though many of the envisaged qualities had undergone some changes. Thus, for example, while the connection to Jewish tradition in the 1952 presidential election related to the ‘ingathering of the exiles’, in 1963 it had become an integral part of the presidency. Moreover, the connection with Diaspora Jewry, which featured prominently in Einstein’s case, effectively vanished when Ben-Zvi’s election had to be justified on domestic grounds, and needed to be returned to centre stage in the 1963 election.

These lofty qualities notwithstanding, Ben-Gurion’s promotion of Ben-Zvi and Shazar was strongly influenced by their being Mapai elders and longtime political collaborators who did not pose a political threat and who were in Ben-Gurion’s debt for their appointment. In Yanayit Ben-Zvi’s sardonic words: ‘Ben-Gurion loved Ben-Zvi, especially loved how much Ben-Zvi loved Ben-Gurion’.²⁹

Conclusion

The vicissitudes in Ben-Gurion’s perception of the presidency influenced and shaped that institution, its functions, and how it was viewed by the public at large. Constituting by and large a political solution for Chaim Weizmann, the presidency was created as a symbolic institution devoid of executive power. Yet since even such an institution had considerable ‘moral authority’ (to use Shimon Peres’s description of the presidency),³⁰ especially in the state’s formative years, Ben-Gurion strove to limit the presidential functions when headed by Weizmann, his political opponent. After Weizmann’s death Ben-Gurion’s position softened, and during the 1952 presidential election he redefined the presidency’s boundaries, expanding and reducing them at his convenience. He did the same in 1963 presidential campaign, changing the attributes of the institute yet again – defining it a national necessity – so that it would fit his preferred candidate.

Contrary to the common perception, Ben-Gurion considered the presidency an important institution within Israel’s sociopolitical system. Symbols are essential for nation building, and Ben-Gurion valued the importance of such ‘state symbols’. He enumerated an array of the president’s required qualities, yet these were interchangeable in accordance with his political needs at any given time. He highly regarded the idea of a Sephardi/Mizrahi president, especially a Yemenite, but did little to attain it.³¹ He viewed the office of the president as a position befitting the most remarkable Jewish figures, yet worked to appoint greyish political individuals, both in the party and public image. He wanted someone who would symbolise the revival of the Jewish state but offered the post to Einstein, who had never resided in Israel and who was a critic of the state in those years. The proposal to Einstein was also puzzling in light of Ben-Gurion’s emphasis on the president’s deep Jewish consciousness and familiarity with Jewish tradition, the Torah and Jewish philosophy.

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Additional information

Notes on contributors

Shoham Wechsler

Shoham Wechsler is a doctoral student at the Department of Jewish History, Tel-Aviv University.

Notes

1. Mapai Center meeting, December 3, 1947, Ben-Gurion Archives, Sde-Boker (hereinafter BGA).

2. The Provisional government meeting, February 6, 1949, Israel State Archives (hereinafter ISA). For constitutional proposals giving the president broad powers, see for example: “Mapai – Constitution and Local Government Issues,” Moshe Sharett Mapai Party Archives, 2-7-1947-13; and Yitzhak Shaki, “Memorandum on the Presidency of the State,” ISA, gimel-5382/12.

3. Weizmann served as president of the World Zionist Organization in 1921–31 and 1935–46.

4. Segev, A State, 492–93; Goldstein, Ben-Gurion, vol. 2, 878; Bar-Zohar, Ben-Gurion, vol. 2, 932–41; Aronson, David Ben-Gurion; Shapira, Ben-Gurion; and Heller, The Birth.

5. Bar-Zohar, Ben-Gurion, vol. 3, 1549.

6. Yitzhak Navon’s Diary, November 9, 1952, Yitzhak Navon Archives; joint discussion of Mapai’s Knesset faction and party centre, November 26, 1952, BGA.

7. See for example, Golani and Reinharz, The Founding Father, 743–79; Gorny, Partnership; Rose, Chaim Weizmann; and Reynold, The War.‏

8. Bareli, Authority, Chap. 9; and Bareli and Kedar, Israeli Republicanism.

9. Bar-Zohar, Ben-Gurion, vol. 2, 933; and Chazan, Independence, Chaps. 5 & 8.

10. The Provisional State Council, May 16, 1948, ISA.

11. The provisional government meeting, February 2, 1949, ISA (emphasis added). On the opposition’s position regarding the presidency, see: Wechsler, “‘He is living Israeli flag’: The Right and the Presidency in Israel under Chaim Weizmann, 1948–1952.”

12. Chazan, Independence and Politics, 333.

13. Tzahor, The Formation, 329.

14. Golani and Reinharz, The Founding Father, 780.

15. Haolam Haze, November 27 & December 4, 1952; letter from Uri Avnery to Nehemiah Argov, November 16, 1952, BGA.

16. Bondy, Felix, 474–76.

17. Letter from Rosen to Ben-Gurion, November 12, 1952. BGA.

18. Sharett, Speaking Out, docs 92, 97, 98; and Feldestein, Ben-Gurion.

19. Ben-Gurion’s Diary, November 15, 1952, BGA; and Ohana, Messianism, 294.

20. Hapoel Hamizrahi Knesset faction meeting, November 17, 1952, Archive of Religious Zionism, 003-001-006.

21. Mapai Political Committee, November 26, 1952, BGA; Ben-Gurion’s Diary, November 23, 1952, BGA.

22. Ben-Gurion’s Diary, November 16, 1952, BGA; Mapai Political Committee, November 26, 1952, BGA. See also Bareli, “Between Party Politics,” 42.

23. See also Picard, “Building the Country”; and Sherzer, The Jewish Past.

24. Maariv, April 26, 1963; Haolam Haze, May 2, 1963.

25. Goldstein, Ben-Gurion, vol. 2, 1172–73.

26. Bar Zohar, Ben-Gurion, vol. 3, 1549.

27. Bareli and Kedar, Israeli Republicanism, 102; and Kedar, Mamlakhtiut, Chaps. 5–7.

28. Ben-Gurion’s Diary, April 16, 1963, BGA.

29. Weitz, David Ben-Gurion’s First Resignation, 307.

30. Peres and Landau, Ben-Gurion, 140–41.

31. Joint discussion of Mapai’s Knesset faction and the party’s centre, November 26, 1952, BGA; Ben-Gurion’s interview with Levi Yitzthak Hayerushalmi, February 28, 1972, BGA.