Beit Eli, located in the Afridar neighborhood of Ashkelon, was the vacation home of Israel’s second president, Yitzhak Ben-Zvi, and his wife, Rachel Yanait. They purchased it as a vacation home to be near near the home of their son Amram, who came to Ashkelon in the early 1950s, from Jerusalem to manage the Egged bus company’s local branch.
The simple house is hardly what one would expect as a residence for the president of the country. But Ben-Zvi believed that the president should set an example for the public and for over 26 years, his home in Jerusalem was a wooden hut in the Rehavia neighborhood of Jerusalem.
Yitshak Ben-Tsvi; (24 November 1884 – 23 April 1963) was a historian, Labor Zionist leader and the longest-serving President of Israel. Beit Eli in Ashkelon was the scene of an important meeting between Ben Gurion and Ben-Zvi.
The eighth government of Israel was formed by David Ben-Gurion on 7 January 1958, and was the second government of the third Knesset. Ben-Gurion kept the same coalition partners as during the previous government (Mapai, the National Religious Party, Mapam, Ahdut HaAvoda, the Progressive Party, the Democratic List for Israeli Arabs, Progress and Work and Agriculture and Development). The only change to the cabinet was the addition of Shlomo-Yisrael Ben-Meir as a Deputy Minister.
All ministers and deputy ministers from the National Religious Party left the cabinet on 1 July 1958. The government collapsed following Ben-Gurion’s resignation on 5 July 1959 after Ahdut HaAvoda and Mapam voted against the government during a vote on selling arms to West Germany and then refused to resign from the government. In July, Ben Gurion travelled to Ashkelon and informed the president of his resignation and his inability to form a new government. This was the first time in ISrael’s history that this occured outside of Jerusalem. New elections were called in November that year and a new government was formed by David Ben-Gurion on 17 December 1959.
Beit Eli is named after their son Eli who was killed in the fields of Kibbutz Beit Keshet in the Lower Galilee on March 16, 1948 . In 1963, it was donated to the people and city of Ashkelon. As of 2017, Beit Eli serves as a place for training and enrichment for teachers and educators called the Beit Eli Center-Psaga.
