The apartment house of the founder of the State of Israel, Ben-Gurion, in the Kibbutz Sde Boker in the Judean Desert.

© Altosvic/Shutterstock

Ben-Gurion's Desert Home


In his will, Israel's founding father asked that the unassuming kibbutz quarters where he lived with his wife Paula remain exactly as he left them, and that’s what you see when you visit this museum: modest furnishings from the 1950s and 1960s, a library packed with books, and a 1952 wall map showing Israel's post-1948 borders. Situated on the southern edge of Kibbutz Sde Boker; turn off Rte 40 at the Delek petrol station.

Two films illustrate Ben-Gurion's life. One looks at his fierce determination to bring about Jewish national self-determination, narrated in a pretty good imitation of the great man's distinctive voice (12 minutes), while the other focusses on the challenges he faced as a leader (15 minutes).


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