David Ben-Gurion Letter Signed.

David Ben-Gurion (1886 to 1973) was the primary founder and first Prime Minister of the State of Israel, proclaiming its independence on May 14, 1948, and leading the new nation through the War of Independence that followed. Ernest Yakov Muller, the soldier commemorated in this letter, was born in Gottingen, Germany, on November 18, 1919, the son of Lotte and Herman. A member of the Habonim movement, he trained as a mechanic and electrician in preparation for a working life in the Land of Israel, but when he was denied an immigration permit because of his poor eyesight he left with his family in 1937 for Santiago, Chile. There he helped create the youth movement Kedma in 1939, which later joined the global movement of Hashomer Hatzair; he took part in establishing pioneer training and worked in it from 1945 to 1947, founding on his own initiative a well-developed precision locksmithing workshop on the farm. At the end of July 1947 he arrived with his wife in the first group of Chilean pioneers, joining in the Negev the first nucleus of immigrants from Latin America, where he trained with the Haganah and took part in its operations from the outbreak of the War of Independence. He volunteered to accompany a truck on a necessary trip to Kibbutz Gat, and on the way back he fell near Kertiya on December 6, 1947. He was laid to rest in the military cemetery in the Negev. His son was born about six months after he fell.