The "King of the Jews" in Bulgaria: David Ben-Gurion's Diary, December 1944

Discusses diary entries (with 18 excerpts) for December 1944 of Zionist leader David Ben-Gurion (1886-1973). December 1944 was especially trying for the future Israeli prime minister, who made an improvised trip to Bulgaria for five days to see how he could aid the surviving remnant of Jews in territories liberated from the Nazis. Known as "King of the Jews" by non-Jews because of his preeminent role in the Zionist movement, Ben-Gurion met with Jewish and non-Jewish leaders in Bulgaria, meetings that were sometimes contentious because the Jewish community in Bulgaria was "ideologically congested." Ben-Gurion was especially hopeful that Jewish survivors in Bulgaria would emigrate to the Jewish homeland in Palestine, but local Bulgarian political leaders, many of them Communists, were often unenthusiastic about supporting a Jewish nationalist movement.