Leon Trotsky

Lev Ben David as President of Israel in 1947

## President of Israel

**Lev Ben David** (**Hebrew:** בן דוד‎ לב, **Russian**: Лев Дави́дович Тро́цкий) also known as **Leon Trotsky** was a Russian-Israeli general and politician. He is known as one of the founding fathers of Israel and one of the foremost and revered leaders of the Zionist movement. He became the first President of Israel in 1947. Ben David served as President of Israel from May 24, 1947 until his assassination by a member of George Habash's Arab Nationalist Movement on August 19, 1958. While relaxing with his family in his home in Tel Aviv, Ben David was assaulted and murdered by a Palestinian ANM member, Wadie Haddad, with an ice axe. Ben David's murder shocked the entire world; he was widely considered to be "a symbol of peace" for Israel. Haddad was captured by police and sentenced to death and Haddad was executed by hanging on April 30, 1959. The attack caused the government to adopt much harsher anti-Palestinian policies. Ben David was buried in Rosh Pina on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem.

Ben David have been characterized as 'greatest Jews who ever lived,' by many in Israeli society and even in Western media. Many consider him to be among the best leaders Israel has ever produced, a man who brought about change when it needed it the most. Others consider him a national hero and symbol of Jewish nationalism, but at the same time one that failed to recognize the rights of the Palestinians to self-determination. As a leader of the Jewish community, he helped create what is considered the modern state of Israel, while also playing a role in helping to shape the Israeli-Arab conflict.

## Life

### Early Life

Lev Ben David was born Lev Davidovich Bronstein on 7 November 1879, the fifth child of a Ukrainian Jewish family of wealthy farmers in Yanovka or Yanivka, in the Kherson governorate of the Russian Empire (now Bereslavka, in Ukraine), a small village 24 kilometres (15 mi) from the nearest post office.

His parents were David Leontyevich Bronstein (1847–1922) and his wife Anna Lvovna (née Zhivotovskaya) (1850–1910). Ben David's father was born in Poltava, and later moved to Bereslavka as it had a large Jewish community, but reportedly not religious. Ben David grew up speaking a mix of Russian and Ukrainian.

When Ben David. was eight, his father sent him to Odessa to be educated. He was enrolled in a German-language school, where he was able to learn German.

As Isaac Deutscher notes in his biography of Ben David, Odessa was then a bustling cosmopolitan port city, very unlike the typical Russian city of the time. This environment contributed to the development of the young man's international outlook. Ben David was exposed to new ideas, such as Zionism, at an early age. The young Bronstein was particularly fond of a German teacher named Karl Wilhelm von Känel, a devout proponent of Zionism despite being a German Christian.

Trotsky became involved in revolutionary activities in 1896 after moving to the harbor town of Nikolayev on the Ukrainian coast of the Black Sea. At first a narodnik, he initially opposed Marxism but was won over to Marxism later that year by his future first wife, Aleksandra Sokolovskaya. Instead of pursuing a mathematics degree, Trotsky helped organize the South Russian Workers' Union in Nikolayev in early 1897. Using the name "Lvov", he wrote and printed leaflets and proclamations, distributed revolutionary pamphlets, and popularized socialist ideas among industrial workers and revolutionary students. In January 1898, more than 200 members of the union, including Trotsky, were arrested. He was held for the next two years in prison awaiting trial, first in Nikolayev, then Kherson, then Odessa, and finally in Moscow. During this period, Trotsky was repeatedly interrogated and beaten by the Tsarist police; he was often in a state of extreme exhaustion and pain when he returned from interrogation, and had to rest in bed for several days afterwards. Two months into his imprisonment, on 1–3 March 1898, the first Congress of the newly formed Russian Social Democratic Labor Party (RSDLP) was held. From then on Trotsky identified as a member of the party.

### Marriage and Exile

While in the prison in Moscow, in the summer of 1899, Trotsky married Aleksandra Sokolovskaya (1872–1938), a fellow Marxist. The wedding ceremony was performed by a Jewish chaplain.

In 1900, he was sentenced to four years in exile in Siberia. Because of their marriage, Trotsky and his wife were allowed to be exiled to the same location in Siberia. They were exiled to Ust-Kut and the Verkholensk in the Baikal Lake region of Siberia. They had two daughters, Zinaida (1901–1933) and Nina (1902–1928), both born in Siberia.

### Zionism and Emigration to the United States

Leon Trotsky founded CNN on May 7th 1939 at the time Californian National News. Today the press platform is known as Comcast News Network.