ABSTRACT
At the end of September, 1940, David Ben-Gurion embarked on a steamer from Liverpool for New York. Five months in blitz-torn London had filled the chairman of the Jewish Agency Executive with “profound admiration” for England and her war-time leader, Winston S. Churchill. The “stubborn, modest courage” of the British people as they stood alone while the Führer's Luftwaffe showered death and ruin stirred the 54-year-old Zionist leader deeply. Albion's confidence in ultimate victory and especially the resoluteness of the individual he characterized as “the world's greatest statesman” provided Ben-Gurion much needed inspiration. “We have two deep wishes in common and I hope they will both come true,” he wrote Lord Balfour's niece just before departing the beleaguered capitol, “a victorious England and a Jewish Palestine.” 1
