December 5, 1949 Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion declares in a Knesset speech that “Jewish Jerusalem is an organic, inseparable part of the state of Israel” and that Israel rejects any attempt by the United Nations…
Benjamin Netanyahu, the ninth and current Prime Minister of Israel, is born in Tel Aviv. Although he spends a good portion of his childhood in Philadelphia, Netanyahu returns to Israel in 1967 to fulfill his service in the IDF.
The Compulsory Education bill, which had been passed on September 12th, enters into law. It mandates that all children between the ages of 5 and 15 attend a state-recognized educational institution.
In an address to the Knesset, Foreign Minister Moshe Sharett reconfirms Israel’s willingness to negotiate agreeable and sustainable terms of peace with its neighbors.
March 8, 1949 David Ben-Gurion’s Knesset-leading Mapai party joins the United Religious Front, the Progressive Party, the Sephardi and Mizrahi Communities, and the Arab-led Democratic List of Nazareth to form a government after Israel’s first…
The iconic flag with two blue stripes and a blue Star of David at its center becomes the official Israeli flag more than five months after the establishment of the state.
Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion summons dozens of Palmach commanders for a conference. There he announces a plan to dismantle the elite, underground fighting unit and integrate it into the newly established Israel Defense Forces.
The Altalena arrives off the coast of Kfar Vitkin from France carrying 900 immigrants and a large stockpile of weapons.
On Friday afternoon in the Tel Aviv Museum, David Ben-Gurion, chairman of the Provisional State Council, declares Israel’s independence. The United States is the first country to recognize the new and already besieged state of Israel.
The US State Department prepares a memorandum for Secretary of State George Marshall and President Truman seeking non-implementation of the UN partition resolution (181) on Palestine.
June 13, 1947 Elyakim Rubinstein, whose law career leads him to diplomacy and the Israeli Supreme Court, is born in Tel Aviv. After his military service, he earns bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the Hebrew…
June 27, 1945 Ami Ayalon, who leads the Shin Bet and the Israeli navy, is born in Tiberias. He serves in the navy from 1963 to 1996. He volunteers for the Shayetet 13 commando unit,…
Berl Katznelson, a leader in the Labor Zionist movement, dies suddenly at the age of 57 in Jerusalem. His advocacy for the creation of a labor-based society in Israel would eventually form the basis of the Mapai party, which was created in 1930 and would dominate Israeli politics until the late 1970′s.
February 28, 1942 Dorit Beinisch, the ninth president of Israel’s Supreme Court, is born Dorit Werba in Tel Aviv to a father who works as a civil servant after arriving from Poland in the 1930s…
Jacob Toledano returns to the Land of Israel in early 1942 to take up his new post as Sephardi Chief Rabbi of Tel-Aviv and Jaffa.
Yossi Sarid, a politician on the left known as “Israel’s moral compass,” is born in Rehovot.
A close associate of Theodore Herzl, Max Bodenheimer is the first president of the Zionist Federation of Germany and is a leader in the establishment of the Jewish National Fund (JNF). He dies in Jerusalem.
In the midst of the 1936-1939 Arab Revolt, a debate over British policy in Mandatory Palestine is held in the House of Commons.
May 31, 1936 National Religious Party politician Zevulun Hammer is born in Haifa. Hammer participates in the Zionist youth group Bnei Akiva and serves in the Israel Defense Forces’ Armored Corps with the Nahal program,…
David Ben-Gurion of Ahdut Ha’avodah and Joseph Sprinzak of Hapoel Hatzair recognize that their parties have more in common with each other than they have differences and begin moving towards a merger. The Mapai party is the result.
November 29, 1928 Shulamit Aloni, the lawyer and politician who founds the Meretz party, is born in Tel Aviv. From a young age, Aloni is involved with politics and is relentless in working to bring…
Ariel Sharon, Israel’s 11th Prime Minister, is born in K’far Malal (near Hod Hasharon). Born Ariel Scheinerman to political, socialist parents who had come to Eretz Yisrael during the Second Aliyah, Sharon joined the Haganah in 1945, serving in the War of Independence.
December 27, 1925 Moshe Arens, an Israeli defense minister and foreign minister, is born in Kovno, Lithuania. After moving to Riga, Latvia, when he is a toddler, his family immigrates to New York in 1939….
December 25, 1925 Politician and activist Geulah Cohen, the founder of the Tehiya party, is born in Tel Aviv. Cohen becomes involved with political movements in Mandatory Palestine when she is young, and she joins…
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