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.
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.
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.
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.
Yehuda Amital, the founder of Yeshivat Har Etzion, is born as Yehuda Klein in Oradea, Romania, where he receives a religious education.
June 4, 1899 Ya’akov Hazan, a leader in socialist politics through Israel’s first four decades, is born in Brest Litovsk, Russia. He is a founder of the Hashomer Hatzair scouting movement in Poland in 1915…
December 31, 1898 Eliyahu Dobkin, a signer of the Israeli Declaration of Independence and the founder of the Israel Museum, is born in Bobruysk, Belarus. Dobkin is raised in a religious Zionist family. His father,…
Yosef Sprinzak, who would serve as the first Speaker of the Knesset and twice as Interim President, is born in Moscow.
