Dedicated with great love and respect to the memory of my rav, teacher, and friend Rabbi Amnon Haramati, z”l, who after being declared dead while fighting for Israel in its War of Independence survived by Hashem’s grace and went on with his perfect faith to become one of the great Torah teachers of the ages.
Virtually every American schoolchild is taught about the American Declaration of Independence and knows that it was signed on July 4, 1776. Except, of course, that it wasn’t. The final document wasn’t even written until two weeks later (that parchment is now one of the greatest treasures at the National Archives building) and the Declaration wasn’t signed until August 2 – and there were several signers who were unable to sign until an even later date.
The American Declaration begins with Jefferson’s inspired statement: “When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another…” This, too, is taught to American elementary school children.
By comparison, very few Israelis pay much attention to Israel’s Declaration of Independence or accord it respect comparable to the reverence that Americans feel for America’s founding document. There are many theories as to why this is so, but the one I believe resonates strongest is that the delegation assigned to enact it included Marxists, atheists, and secularists on one side and Torah-observant Jews on the other. As the result of bitter wrangling on virtually every word in the document, each side was forced to make difficult compromises so that the final document was watered down to the point of being rendered virtually meaningless.
In any case, few know that an early draft of Israel’s Declaration was written by Mordechai Beham, a Ukrainian-born lawyer – or that Benham cribbed Jefferson’s poetic language from the American Declaration.
After struggling with how to begin composing what he knew would prove to be a document of enormous historical import, Benham finally hit on an idea: he would “borrow” from Jefferson. And so he opened his draft with the words “When in the course of human events…” but he did not stop there: He also copied text from Deuteronomy and the United Nations’ Partition Plan for Eretz Yisrael.
Ultimately, very little of Benham’s draft made it into the final Declaration, but two of his contributions that survived proved to be the greatest sources of controversy in Israel’s adoption of its founding document. First, he is credited with inserting God’s name into the final paragraph, which also appears in the final paragraph of the American Declaration. Second, it was Benham who promoted the idea that Israel was founded not only by Jews living in Eretz Yisrael but also by Zionists in the Diaspora.
The signers of the Israeli Declaration of Independence all believed that document should express the fundamental values and principles that would define the new Jewish state. But the great religious divide between Torah Jews and secular Jews, which continues to vex Israel today, manifested itself most significantly with respect to the inclusion of language in the Declaration regarding the God of Israel. Religious leaders, led by Rav Yehuda Leib Fishman-Maimon, sought an unambiguous reference to Hashem by using the words “The Rock of Israel and its Redeemer,” but the secularist and socialist leadership demanded a clear separation of church and state in Israel’s formative document.
The issue came to a head when Aharon Zisling, the left-wing leader of Mapam, refused to sign the Declaration if it contained references to “a God in whom I do not believe.” The disagreement grew to the point where it threatened to derail the proclamation of the establishment of a Jewish state. Ben-Gurion spent the morning of May 14 mediating the dispute between Rav Maimon and Zisling and, after hours of talks, Rav Maimon agreed to omit the term “Redeemer” from the text of the Declaration.
The final language adopted in the last paragraph of the Declaration reads:
Placing our trust in the Rock of Israel we affix our signatures to this Proclamation at this session of the Provisional Council of State on the soil of the Homeland, in the city of Tel Aviv, on this Sabbath eve, the 5th day of Iyar, 5708 [14 May, 1948].
On May 12, 1948, the Minhelet HaAm (“People’s Administration”) had convened to vote on whether to declare independence, with three of its thirteen members missing (Rav Maimon and Yitzhak Gruenbaum were stuck in besieged Jerusalem, and Yitzhak Meir Levin was in the U.S.). The decision to declare independence (and to reject an American proposal for a truce) passed by the slimmest possible majority, on a vote of 6-4.
Shown with this column is a remarkable historical rarity, the actual invitation sent to the 37 signers and a few others to attend the historic signing of the Israeli Declaration of Independence:
Honored Sirs:
We are hereby honored to send you an invitation to attend
THE SESSION OF
THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCEthat will take place on Friday, 5 Iyar 5708 (May 14, 1948) at 4
in the afternoon in Museum Hall (at 16 Rothschild Street).We request that you keep the subject matter of this invitation
secret and the time that the Council will assemble.
Invitees are asked to arrive at the hall at 3:30.With great respect
The SecretariatThis invitation is personal – dress: festive clothing, as befitting the occasion
The proclamation of a Jewish state had to be made on May 14 because the British Mandate was to end at midnight and Jewish leadership did not want even one second to pass before the formal establishment of the state. The event, originally scheduled for 11 p.m., was moved up to 4 p.m. out of respect for Shabbat and was broadcast live as the first transmission of the new radio station, Kol Yisrael. The ceremony was held in the Tel Aviv Museum (which is today known as Independence Hall) but it was not widely publicized (“we request that you keep the subject matter secret”) because of the real fear that the British authorities would attempt to block it or that the Arab armies, already massed for attack, might preemptively invade earlier than expected.
Ben-Gurion opened the session by banging his gavel on the table, which prompted a spontaneous singing of the Hatikvah, soon to become Israel’s national anthem. On the wall behind the podium hung a picture of Theodor Herzl, the founder of modern Zionism, and two Zionist flags. After telling the audience “I shall now read to you the Scroll of the Establishment of the State, which has passed its first reading by the National Council,” Ben-Gurion proceeded to read out the Declaration, ending with the words “Let us accept the Foundation Scroll of the Jewish State by rising” and calling upon Rav Yehuda Leib Fishman to recite the Shehecheyanu blessing.
Finally, shown here as exhibit 2 is another incomparable Jewish history rarity: a cover with a “Do’ar Ivri” stamp (cancelled May 16, 1948) and a cachet of the Declaration of the State of Israel, “Independence Day, May 15, 1948.” The cover has been signed by eleven signers of the Israeli Declaration of Independence (which, to my knowledge, makes this is the document with the greatest number of original signatures by Declaration signers – except, of course, for the Declaration itself):
David Ben-Gurion (prime minister); Eliezer Kaplan (deputy prime minister and minister of finance); Moshe Shertok (later “Sharett,” foreign minister and later prime minister); David Remez (transportation minister); Bechor-Shalom Sheetrit (police minister); Felix Rosenbluth, aka Pinchas Rosen (justice minister); Chaim Moshe Shapira (minister of interior, health and aliyah); Aharon Zisling; Mordechai Bentov; Peretz Bernstein; and Yitzchak Gruenbaum.
Wishing a happy and healthy 69th Yom Ha’Atzmaut to all.
