"Anti-Semitism is spreading, and the Negev is the answer": What Ben-Gurion wrote to the Jewish judge in 1934

The Ben-Gurion Heritage Institute and the Ben-Gurion Archives have revealed for the first time two historic letters written by David Ben-Gurion to the Jewish-American judge Louis Brandeis, in 1934 and 1935. In the letters, Ben-Gurion describes the spread of anti-Semitism in Europe and presents the Negev as the settlement solution for the future of the Jewish people.

To mark 53 years since the death of David Ben-Gurion, the Ben-Gurion Heritage Institute and the Ben-Gurion Archives have revealed for the first time two historic letters written by Ben-Gurion to the Jewish-American judge Louis Brandeis, in 1934 and 1935, 13 years before the establishment of the state. In the first letter, from January 1934, Ben-Gurion describes the spread of anti-Semitic propaganda in Europe following the rise of the Nazis to power in Germany, and formulates two conditions for Zionist leadership: the distress of the Jewish people and the absorption capacity of the land. He states that the land is capable of absorbing 50,000 Jews a year and warns of a heavy price if preparations are not made. About a year later, in June 1935, Ben-Gurion moves to the question of action and identifies the Negev as the solution – a vast and almost uninhabited space, where through drilling wells, dense mass settlement will be possible. The institute's CEO, Itzan Donitz, notes that reading the documents is shaking due to their relevance today, and that Ben-Gurion's answer was practical and bold: to expand the absorption capacity of the land and develop the Negev.

"Anti-Semitism is spreading, and the Negev is the answer": What Ben-Gurion wrote to the Jewish judge in 1934