Levi Eshkol

Biography

Levi Eshkol, born Levi Shkolnik in 1895 near Kiev in the Russian Empire, was drawn into Zionism as a student in Vilna and emigrated to Ottoman Palestine in 1914, where he worked as a farm labourer. He served in the Jewish Legion, helped found Kibbutz Degania Bet, the Histadrut labour federation and the Haganah, and became a leading figure in Hapoel Hatzair and later Mapai.

In 1933-1934 he worked in Berlin for the Zionist movement and took part in negotiating the Haavara transfer agreement with Nazi Germany. In 1937 he founded the national water company Mekorot, which he directed until 1951, and he managed the Haganah's finances and arms purchasing before and during the 1948 war, then served as director-general of the defence ministry.

Elected to the Knesset in 1951, he was minister of agriculture and from 1952 minister of finance for eleven years, building up the ministry and setting up the Bank of Israel. He succeeded David Ben-Gurion as prime minister and defence minister in June 1963, ended military rule over Israeli Arabs, and won the 1965 election.

His close relations with President Lyndon Johnson shaped Israeli-American ties before the Six-Day War of 1967, on the eve of which he handed the defence portfolio to Moshe Dayan. A founder of the Israeli Labor Party, he led it from its creation in January 1968 until he died in office in February 1969.