David Ben Gurion vacated his Tel Aviv apartment today and left for Sdeh Boker, the tiny Negev sheepherders settlement, where he will become an ordinary citizen. His belongings have already been shipped to the prefabricated house on the treeless and grassless plateau which he will henceforth call home.
At Beersheba, en route to Sdeh Boker, Mr. Ben Gurion will be given a warm greeting. The chief participants in this ceremony will be about 1,000 schoolchildren who will turn out to welcome this “new citizen of the Negev,” Israel’s development frontier.
The staff of the military industry department of the Ministry of Defense which he formerly headed, presented to Mr. Ben Gurion as a farewell gift a “Uzi” submachine gun designed and manufactured in Israel and bearing an engraved inscription. The retired Premier disclosed his attention of making Beersheba the mecca of Zionist youth movements and the center for all pioneer and youth activities. He said that during his retirement, he would not move further north from Sdeh Boker than Beersheba.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.