10.05.2011                      06.Ijar, 5771                      Unabhängigkeitstag; Tag 20 des Omer

Feature:

Reuven Rivlin / Israel's declaration of a dream

Israel's Declaration of Independence was the formative document of the state, but that doesn't mean it is immune to criticism or that it didn't demand additional work of its creators or their heirs.

I was a boy growing up in Jerusalem in the period before the writing of the Declaration of Independence, and that time is still etched vividly in my memory. Those were moments of tension, fear and hope, of international pressure and a war effort, in the shadow of fierce and complex ideological disputes. Above all, the dimensions of the appalling Holocaust were becoming clearer, heightening the urgency of establishing a state, but also the apprehension about such a step.
For me, the Declaration of Independence is the declaration of the Jewish dream, and simultaneously the expression of its realization. It is a formative document, proclaimed, formulated and written at a moment of civil and religious sanctity, when the Jewish people fulfilled a 2,000-year-old hope. The Declaration of Independence was effectively the first document of the State of Israel, which by its very promulgation established the Jewish state….