Paula Ben-Gurion

Paula Ben-Gurion was born in 1892 in Minsk

Paula Ben-Gurion was born Pauline Munweis in Minsk, in the Russian Empire, in 1892. As a girl she moved with relatives to New York.

In the United States she trained as a surgical nurse at Beth Israel Hospital in Newark. She was an anarchist and opposed Zionism, and she admired Emma Goldman.

She met David Ben-Gurion in New York and helped him with research for a book at the public library. They married in a civil ceremony on 5 December 1917, and she later left nursing. They had 3 children: Geula, Amos and Renana.

She arrived in the Land of Israel with her daughter in 1919 and settled in Jerusalem with her husband in 1922. After 1948 she served as the prime minister's spouse, spoke with the press and managed the household in Tel Aviv.

The couple retired to Kibbutz Sde Boker in the Negev. She died in 1968 and was buried there beside her husband.