David Green; (October 16, 1886 – December 1, 1973) was the principal national founder of the State of Israel and the first Prime Minister of that state. He was born in Plońsk, was a member of the Polish Congress at the time and grew up in a family of Polish Jews. In 1906 he emigrated to the Palestinian region of the Ottoman Empire. In 1909 he adopted the name Ben-Gurion and became a prominent leader of the Jewish community in British-controlled Mandatory Palestine from 1935 until the founding of the State of Israel in and 1948, which he led until 1963 with a brief break in 1954-55.