(ISRAEL, STATE OF).

Tel Aviv

1948

Iton Rashmi [Official Gazette], Number One. Proclamation of the Establishment of the State of Israel. Tel Aviv, 5th of Iyar (14th May) 1948. Bifoliate leaf, pp. 3. Inscribed by previous owner, 7th of Iyar. * Accompanied by: Cheiruth: “The State of Israel is Established." Motzaei Shabbath, 6th of Iyar, 1948

The first item is the Provisional Government's Official Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel on the 14th May, 1948, following the expiration of the British Mandate a day before. The text closes with the endorsement of a broad spectrum of 36 Zionist leaders from Ben Zvi to Rabbis Kalman Kahane and Yitzchak Meir Lewin of Agudath Israel. The second item printed immediately following the conclusion of the Sabbath, (the Declaration had been made Sabbath Eve), Cheiruth, the Organ of the Revisionist Zionist Movement, similarly declares the Establishment of the State of Israel. It stresses that the State came to be not through the benevolence of the United Nations, but rather due to the courage and self-sacrifice of the Jewish underground who drove Britain from the Land. The centerpiece of this issue is a lengthy, emotional, full page message from the unnamed "Commander in Chief of the Irgun Tzeva'i Le'umi," (i.e. Menachem Begin)