In November, 1947, the United Nations approved a plan, called Partition, to divide Palestine into three sections: a Jewish state, an independent Arab state, and an internationalized Jerusalem. Fierce fighting broke out over who would control what territory, with the British set to leave in May, 1948. After six months of civil war between the Jews of Palestine and the Arabs of Palestine, the Jews were ready to fulfill the Zionist Movement’s goal of declaring a Jewish state in their ancient homeland, to be named Israel.

THE PLOT

As the British Mandate came to a close on May 14, 1948, David Ben Gurion declared the establishment of the State of Israel. The independence ceremony was held at the Tel Aviv home of Meir Dizengoff, the city’s first mayor, which had been converted to an art museum. A few hundred people received secret invites, lest the ceremony be disrupted by the British or an Arab attack. At 4pm on Friday, just a few minutes before Shabbat, Ben Gurion read from the Declaration of Independence, which had been finalized only an hour before.

As the ceremony began, underneath a portrait of Theodore Herzl, the founder of the Zionist Movement, the assembled crowd, overcome by the immense gravity of the situation, burst out singing Hatikvah, the Zionist anthem expressing the hope that after two thousand years the Jews would be returned to their homeland. Then Ben Gurion began reading from the text.

The Declaration begins with a justification for the Jewish State and a narrative of Jewish history, based on a “spiritual, religious, and political identity” tied to the Jews’ accomplishments in the Land of Israel. The document walks through recent history, from the Balfour Declaration through the Holocaust and the UN’s partition vote. “It is the natural right of the Jewish people to be masters of their own fate, like all other nations, in their own sovereign state,” said Ben Gurion. 

Instead of the kind of theocratic language that we might expect from a Middle Eastern country, the Declaration commits Israel to humanistic, progressive democratic values like equality of social and political rights, freedom of religion, access to education, protection of holy places, and “the development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants….” For a tiny country with few resources and under siege by hostile neighbors, it was a hugely optimistic and idealistic perspective.

The Declaration also appeals directly to the Arabs for peace and coexistence. It calls on the Arab inhabitants of Israel to participate in building the state on the basis of full and equal citizenship and due representation. It extends a hand of friendship to the surrounding Arab states, appealing for cooperation, and promising that Israel will do its share for the common advancement of the entire Middle East.

Just after 4:30pm, Ben Gurion said simply, “The State of Israel is established. This meeting is adjourned.” Within hours of the Declaration five Arab armies invaded, and the new state was plunged into war.

THE PEOPLE

Ze’ev Sherf: Jewish Agency official caught in Tel Aviv traffic while delivering the Declaration of Independence to Ben Gurion.

David Ben Gurion: head of the Jewish Agency who, upon the establishment of Israel, became its first Prime Minister. Under his leadership the Zionist Movement had set and reached its goal of establishing a Jewish state in Palestine. He now had before him the task of protecting Israel against invasion while simultaneously building the state.

Mordechai Beham: 31 year-old official assigned to draft the Declaration of Independence. In 2019 the Israeli government fought a court battle with his family for possession of his writings, which the Supreme Court ruled had to be turned over to the State Archives.

Golda Meir: signer of the Declaration of Independence who became Israel’s first (and only) female Prime Minister in the 1970s.

Rachel Cohen-Kagan: signer of the Declaration of Independence and prominent Zionist leader who went on to serve in the Knesset. 

THE BIG IDEAS

Israel’s Declaration of Independence is based on history, not religion. It situates the Jews as an indigenous people rebuilding themselves in their ancient homeland, but looking to do so in a way that grounds them in the present reality of postwar democracy and international politics. It commits Israel to lofty principles (that it won’t always meet).  These contradictions were baked into the very first few minutes of the State, providing a baseline perspective to reflect back on as Israel matures through the ensuing decades.

In a 7-3 vote the governing council representing the Yishuv, the Jewish community in Palestine, had voted on the name Israel. It means to “wrestle” and was the name God bestowed on Jacob after Jacob tussled with an angel of God through the night, in the Book of Genesis. It’s a name that reflects the deep Jewish past and the notion that the Jews consider themselves a people whose identity and consciousness is grounded in their historical homeland. 

The only mention of God comes at the end of the Declaration, in a cryptic reference to “the Rock of Israel.” The Declaration is a secular document because the Zionist Movement itself was secular, rejecting the strictures of traditional Judaism. And Israel imagined itself as a state for all its inhabitants, irrespective of religious belief. Yet Judaism as a religion goes on to play a tremendously important role in national life, from civil society to politics.

FUN FACTS

Several names were considered for the Jewish state, among them Judah, Zion, Herzliya, and Tzabar (the Hebrew word for cactus).

Of the 38 signers of the Declaration of Independence, 11 were trapped in Jerusalem and couldn’t get to the ceremony. Two of the 38 were women.

Two of the most influential leaders of the Zionist Movement, Chaim Weizmann and Menachem Begin, were neither at the ceremony or allowed by Ben Gurion to sign the Declaration of Independence.

© Jason Harris 2019