I3: Israel's Birth

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Outside the Land - Inside the Miracle

I have something special to tell my grandchildren: that I lived in the eye of a miracle. I remember my parents, sisters and neighbours gathering in front of our radio, listening to the U.N. count on partition. When the chairman called out the deciding vote, everyone hugged and cried, and my father opened a bottle of whiskey for a l'chayim. I remember David Ben Gurion's immortal words on May 14th 1948, as he declared Israel an independent state. Moments later, one could hear the singing and dancing in the streets of Tel Aviv, and the sounds of guns and warfare in the distant background. I will tell my grandchildren that my second cousin fought in the War of Independence and that I once met David Ben Gurion in person and that the Monday morning of the Six Day War is as vivid to me as yesterday. "Two thousand years, and it happened to me! Come here and touch me." That's what I'll say to them. And that is what they will tell their grandchildren every Yom Ha'Atzmaut. (Blu Greenberg)

Israel among the Nations

The State of Israel has been a member of the United Nations since 1949 and maintains relations with the majority of states, with the exception of most Islamic countries which refuse to recognise it. Influenced by centuries of persecution, the devastating experience of the Holocaust and the still unresolved Arab-Israeli conflict, the country's foreign policy has been designed to ensure its security, to promote co-operation with other nations and to help advance international peace and progress.

Yom Ha'Atzmaut and History

Jewish time is not linear, but forms a spiral. Every year we return to the same moments though we have moved on in our lives. It is no coincidence that Yom Ha'Atzmaut falls less than two weeks after Pesach. On Pesach the Jews gained their release from slavery and the freedom to choose their own future. The gaining of an independent state is a great stage in the fulfilment of that future. Though Pesach and Yom Ha'Atzmaut are over 3000 years apart, they occupy the same time location in the Jewish year and so share certain feelings and attitudes: Both are miraculous events, both are times of freedom and joy and both are times of thanks to God and belief in Jewish destiny.

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