This lot is closed. Bidding ended on 7/8/2004.
Israeli statesman, First Prime Minister. Historically significant autograph letter signed "D. Ben-Gurion" in Hebrew, 4.75" x 8.25", in part: "[you have] my permission to use the Eretz Israel book that my late friend (Itzhak) Ben-Tzvi and I wrote ... I would very much like to know what you have in your archive about the BILU members ... I must know everything possible about them ... and about the first years of Gedera (until the year 1906, when I came to Eretz) ..." BILU, acronym for "Beit Ya'akov Lekhu Ve-nelkha", verse from Isaiah that translates "Let the house of Jacob go!" Its members, Russian Jews, settled in Gedera, near Rehovot in what is now central Israel in late 19th century, their quest to make the Holy Land their home essential step toward a Jewish homeland. Book by Ben-Gurion & Ben-Tzvi, "Eretz Israel in the Past and in the Present" published in Yiddish during WW I. Choice letter in which Israel's founding father mentions his beloved friend who died a year earlier as well as pre-statehood history, in Hebrew with English translation. This lot comes with a letter from PSA/DNA.