In 1929, he was elected as chairman of the settlement committee within the Zionist Congress, taking a leading role in enabling conditions for new construction.

Levi Eshkol (Shkolnik) was born in the shtetl of Oratov, Lipovetsky Uyezd, Kiev Governorate, Russian Empire (now Orativ, Vinnytsia Oblast, Ukraine).

He was elected to the local executive committee and, in 1913, joined Hapoel Hatzair following his meeting with party leader Joseph Shprinzak.

[4] At the outbreak of World War I, fearing local hostility, his group settled briefly in Kfar Uria, Rishon LeZion and returning to Petah Tikva.

Eshkol lobbied for a national water company from circa 1930[citation needed], presenting budget plans before the World Zionist Organization in 1933 and 1935.

As internal party tension was growing due to the Lavon Affair, Eshkol was asked to serve as an arbitrator.

Ben-Gurion continued to lead Mapai in the 1961 legislative election but struggled to form a coalition and relied on Eshkol's negotiations with rival parties.

Eshkol oversaw the implementation of Kaplan's 1952 economic plan, as well as realizing the Reparations Agreement between Israel and West Germany, which was towards its final stages of negotiation and signed in September 1952.

In 1957 he began talks with the European Economic Community towards integration of Israel in its market, ultimately achieved in 1964 with the signing of the first commercial agreement between the two entities.

When Ben-Gurion resigned in June 1963, Eshkol was elected party chairman with a broad consensus and was subsequently appointed prime minister.

However, his relationship with Ben-Gurion soon turned acrimonious over the latter's insistence on investigating the Lavon Affair, an Israeli covert operation in Egypt, which had gone wrong a decade earlier.

He and Finance Minister Pinchas Sapir's subsequent "soft landing" of the overheated economy by means of recessive policies precipitated a drastic slump in economic activity.

Israel's centralized planned economy lacked the mechanisms to self-regulate the slowdown, which reached levels higher than expected.

Eshkol faced growing domestic unrest as unemployment reached 12% in 1966, yet the recession eventually served in healing fundamental economic deficiencies and helped fuel the ensuing recovery of 1967–1973.

[citation needed] Upon being elected into office, Levi Eshkol fulfilled Ze'ev Jabotinsky's wish and brought his body and that of his wife to Israel where they were buried in Mount Herzl Cemetery.

During his first months as premier, Eshkol was engaged in a now-declassified diplomatic standoff with the United States that had begun in 1960 under Ben-Gurion.

[12] With Johnson's administration also represented in this case by national security aide Robert W. Komer and others, Eshkol signed what became known as the Eshkol-Comer (sic)[dubious – discuss] memorandum of understanding (MOU) about Israeli nuclear capabilities.

[13] The special relationship he developed with Johnson would prove pivotal in securing US political and military support for Israel during the "Waiting period" before the Six-Day War of June 1967.

[14] According to Michael Oren, Eshkol's intransigence in the face of military pressure to launch an Israeli attack is considered to have been instrumental in increasing Israel's strategic advantage and obtaining international legitimacy, but at the time, he was perceived as hesitant, an image cemented after a stuttered radio speech on 28 May.

Eshkol eventually established a National Unity Government, together with Menachem Begin's Herut party, and conceded the Defense portfolio to Moshe Dayan.

He suffered a heart attack on 3 February 1969 from which he recovered and gradually returned to his work, maintaining meetings from the Prime Minister's official residence.

Eshkol was laid to rest on 28 February at Mount Herzl and was the first prime minister interred at the Great Leaders of the Nation Plot.

He was the first of either presidents and prime ministers of Israel to be buried at the plot, preceded only by Eliezer Kaplan and Yosef Sprinzak.

Eshkol's body remained at the Prime Minister's residence in a symbolic lie in state, with an honor guard of the Israeli Police.

An official state ceremony attended by dignitaries and international delegates was held in the Knesset plaza on 28 February, prior to the funeral procession to Mount Herzl.