Editing Mapai (section)

==Party leaders==
===General Secretaries===
*1930–1954 – [[David Ben-Gurion]]
*1954–1955 – [[Moshe Sharett]]
*1955–1963 – David Ben-Gurion
*1963–1968 – [[Levi Eshkol]]

===Selection of party leaders===
Until 1963, the party had no formal rules to govern the selection of its leader. From the party's establishment, David Ben-Gurion was long the unchallenged leader of the party. Even in his brief 1954–1955 retirement (during which [[Moshe Sharett]] served as the official party leader), Ben-Gurion was still largely considered the [[de facto]] party boss. After Ben-Gurion retired again in 1963, informal consultations by the party's leading figures resulted in an informal consensus to appoint [[Levi Eshkol]] as leader, and this choice was ratified by the party's Central Committee. Soon after becoming party leader, Eshkol successfully pushed the party to amend its constitution to state that the party's candidate for the office of prime minister (its leader) would be selected by the party's Central Committee. Thus, when Ben-Gurion unsuccessfully attempted to retake party leadership in 1965, there was [[1965 Mapai leadership election|a formal leadership election]] held by a vote of the party's Central Committee. <ref name="Kenig">{{cite journal |last1=Kenig |first1=Ofer |title=Democratizing Party Leadership Selection in Israel: A Balance Sheet |journal=Israel Studies Forum |date=2009 |volume=24 |issue=1 |pages=62–81 |jstor=41805011 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/41805011 |access-date=25 January 2022 |issn=1557-2455}}</ref>