The Proclamation of Independence – How It Happened
Today, our country and Jews around the world are celebrating the 76th anniversary of the independence of the state of Israel. The Jewish date of this event, the 5th of the month of Iyar, is proclaimed a national holiday – Independence Day, which this year falls on May 14th.
So, 76 years ago. May 14, 1948, 16:00. Eight hours before the end of the British mandate over Palestine.
Tel Aviv, Rothschild Boulevard, house 16. The building of the city museum, formerly – the house of Meir Dizengoff, the first mayor of the city.
Around the building, several thousand people gathered. Everyone is excited.
The final version of the text of the Declaration of Independence was approved an hour before the ceremony, typed on a typewriter, and delivered a few minutes before the appointed time.
At exactly 16:00, the Chairman of the People’s Council, David Ben-Gurion, utters the historic words: “In the Land of Israel, the Jewish people was born. Here its spiritual, religious, and political identity was shaped. Here it lived in its sovereign state, here it created values of national and universal culture and gave the world the eternal Book of Books…“
The ceremony of adopting the declaration was broadcast by the radio station “Kol Israel”
Out of 37 people in the People’s Council, only 25 signed the Declaration of Independence at that meeting. Another 12 members of the Council were in besieged Jerusalem and were only able to sign several weeks later.
26 out of the 37 signatories of the Declaration of Independence were natives of the Russian Empire.
The Declaration of Independence concludes with the words: “We call upon the Jewish people in all the diaspora countries to rally around the Jews of the Land of Israel in the task of immigration to the country and its construction, and to stand by Israel in the great struggle for the realization of the centuries-old aspiration of the Jewish people for redemption.
Placing our trust in the Rock of Israel, we affix our signatures to this testimony at this Declaration on the session of the Provisional State Council, in the city of Tel Aviv, today, on the eve of Sabbath, 5 Iyar 5708, May 14, 1948“.
The very next day, the armies of five Arab countries (Syria, Egypt, Lebanon, Iraq, and Transjordan) simultaneously began military operations against the newly born Jewish state with the aim of preventing its existence.
