68 156 (ISRAEL, STATE OF). Yom Hamedinah - The Day of the State. A Joint Publication of Israel’s Newspapers. TEXT ENTIRELY IN ENGLISH. Single broadside sheet, printed on both sides. Photographic illustrations. Evenly browned, central fold. 19 x 13 inches (47.5 x 33 cm). (Tel Aviv), 4pm, Friday, 14th May, 1948. $5000 - $7000 ❧ EXCEPTIONALLY RARE. No other copy located. On May 14, 1948, “the last day of foreign rule, ” the Hebrew newspapers in Palestine published a joint issue titled Yom HaMedinah, “The Day of the State, ” announcing the establishment of the State of Israel. The Hebrew language version of this famed newspaper is well known, offered here is the highly scarce English language issue of the historic publication. It contains the text of the Declaration of Independence and states that the regulations of the 1939 White Paper, with its restrictions on Jewish immigration and land transfers, are no longer valid. The second page carries sixteen encapsulated articles concerning the events of the day, along with a bold public announcement “By Special Permission of the Chief Rabbinate: Uninterrupted Mobilization All Throughout Shabbat.” Lot 157 Lot 156 157 (ITALY). Benedetto Frizzi (Benzion Raphael HaKohen). Difesa contro gli attacchi fatti alia Nazione Ebrea nel Libro Intitolato “Della Influenza Del Ghetto Nello Stato” [response to the slanderous attack by Giovan Battista D’Arco against the Jews of Italy]. FIRST EDITION. Printer’s device on title. pp. 191. Touch foxed. Modern vellum-backed patterned boards. 8vo. Pavia, Monistero di S. Salvatore, 1784. $1000 - $1500 ❧ Born in Ostiano near Mantua, Benedetto Frizzi (1756–1844) studied medicine at the University of Pavia. A man of great learning and wide renown, Frizzi grew to be considered one of the most outstanding Jewish scholars of the Western European Enlightenment and a champion of Italian Jewry against political attack by the commentariat. In this anonymously penned tract Frizzi sought to disprove accusations that Jews shunned Christians and that their economic activities impoverished the countries they lived in. He describes Jewish theology, philosophy, and ethics and then analyzes in great detail and with many examples, the economic role of the Jews in Europe, particularly Italy. Frizzi discusses the valuable functions the Jews have historically fulfilled and by what nature their success as merchants may be attributed to. See S. Simonsohn, History of the Jews in the Duchy of Mantua (1977) pp. 711-2.