Levi Eshkol

Levi Eshkol was born in 1895 in Kyiv

Levi Eshkol was born Levi Yitzhak Shkolnik in 1895 in the town of Oratov in the Kiev Governorate of the Russian Empire. His parents were Dvora and Joseph Shkolnik. He began a traditional Jewish education at the age of 4 and also studied general subjects.

He went to study at a Jewish gymnasium in Vilna and joined the Zionist movement there. In 1913 he joined Hapoel Hatzair after meeting Joseph Shprinzak. In 1914 he moved to Ottoman Palestine and worked in agriculture in Petah Tikva.

In 1920 he was among the founders of Kibbutz Degania Bet, the Histadrut and the Haganah. In 1937 he founded the Mekorot water company and ran it until 1951. From May 1948 to January 1949 he was Director General of the Ministry of Defense.

He was elected to the Knesset for Mapai in 1951 and served as Minister of Agriculture. From 1952 he was Minister of Finance and helped set up the Bank of Israel. In 1963 he replaced David Ben-Gurion as prime minister and also served as Minister of Defense until 1967.

In 1966 he led the end of military rule over Israeli Arabs. He headed the government during the Six-Day War and helped unite the workers' parties into the Israeli Labor Party. He died in office in 1969 and was buried in Jerusalem.