Rabbi Meir Soloveichik, Fleur Hassan-Nahoum Dov Zigler and Neil Rogachevsky

On March 12, the Zahava and Moshael Straus Center for Torah and Western Thought, in partnership with the Menachem Begin Heritage Center and Yeshiva University in Israel, held a book launch for Straus Center Associate Director Dr. Neil Rogachevsky's Israel’s Declaration of Independence (Cambridge University Press, 2023), co-authored with economist Dov Zigler.

The launch was delivered at the Menachem Begin Heritage Center in Jerusalem to a packed auditorium of Israelis from all walks of life. Deputy Mayor Fleur Hassan-Nahoum of Jerusalem opened the event, noting the book’s immediate relevance to the current political controversy regarding proposed judicial reforms in Israel. As fierce protests and counter-protests were raging only a few blocks away, Hassan-Nahoum observed: "Politics is all about timing. This book could not have come at a better moment… we are having an aggressive democratic debate right now… [a debate about] the balance of powers, the different roles of the arms of government, a debate worthy of the Jewish people." Amid this disputative climate, the deputy mayor asserted that "this book brings us back to the basics… the inspiration behind [Israel’s] Basic Laws…"

Of Rogachevsky and Zigler, Deputy Mayor Hassan-Nahoum exhorted: “Please translate this book into Hebrew. We need the [current] debate to be based on the real values the country was founded on and to inform the writing of a constitution… I hope this book is the basis of the mishkan [tabernacle] we need to put together to get over this crisis.”  Hassan-Nahoum praised the pioneering work that Yeshiva University has achieved in establishing multifaceted educational and social programs in Israel. Back in October, the deputy mayor worked with the executive director of YU Israel, Stephanie Strauss, the Wurzweiler School of Social Work in Israel, and the Adumim association to found Israel’s first mental health therapy center for English speakers. Deputy Mayor Hassan-Nahoum then spoke about how she recently came across Churgin Professor of History Dr. Steven Fine’s work restoring the color of the Arch of Titus in touring the Tower of David. “Yeshiva University is part of the fabric of Jerusalem,” Hassan-Nahoum said, noting how YU inspires intellectual debate in the city through its Gruss campus and beyond.

Next, Straus Center Director Rabbi Dr. Meir Soloveichik delivered the evening’s keynote lecture, analyzing Menachem Begin’s famous radio broadcast to the Irgun Underground on Saturday night, May 15, 1948. That evening, one day after David Ben-Gurion read out Israel’s Declaration of Independence in Tel Aviv, Begin addressed his soldiers, announcing that the Irgun would disband and integrate into the nascent Israel Defense Forces.  Rabbi Soloveichik illustrated how Begin concluded his broadcast with the Shehechiyanu blessing that is traditionally recited at the onset of a holiday and before tasting the first fruits of a season. Begin declared Israel’s Independence Day as a new holiday and likened the fledgling state to a new fruit: “Today is truly a holiday, a Holy Day, and a new fruit is visible before our very eyes… we therefore can say with full heart and soul… Blessed is He who has sustained us and enabled us to have reached this time.” Rabbi Soloveichik noted that there are few blessings as emotional and as reflective of the Jewish value of human life as the Shehechiyanu. To invoke the Shehechiyanu is to be intimately aware of Judaism’s rich heritage and to allow it to shape our future. Menachem Begin was singular among the early Zionist leaders for keeping the Jewish past alive in his political endeavors. While Ben Gurion’s final draft of Israel’s declaration cites the Holocaust as the primary justification for the founding of a Jewish state, Begin recalls the holiday prayers recited at his father’s table in order to bind Jews who lived thousands of years ago to those only recently murdered. In advance of Israel’s imminent Independence War, Begin told his soldiers: “We shall go on our way into battle, soldiers of the Lord of Hosts, inspired by the spirit of our ancient heroes, from the conquerors of Canaan to the Rebels of Judah. We shall be accompanied by the spirit of those who revived our nation…by the spirit of the millions of our martyrs… and in this battle, we shall break the enemy and bring salvation to our people." To say the Shehechiyanu, Rabbi Soloveichik concluded, is to bless life and to channel those who came before to live on through our actions: “the pain of the past lends a depth of joy to our own pronunciations of Shehechiyanu.” Thus, Menachem Begin embodied the new fruit of the state – a fruit that is very old - but resurrected, the “old-new land,” envisioned by Theodor Herzl in 1902.

Dr. Neil Rogachevsky and Dov Zigler then took to the stage to discuss the origins of the declaration, beginning with the influence of America’s own Declaration of Independence on an earlier draft of Israel’s founding document. In late April 1948, attorney Mordechai Beham and Harry Davidowitz were tasked with composing an early draft of Israel’s declaration. Penned in English, the Beham-Davidowitz Draft borrowed language from Thomas Jefferson’s 1776 declaration (including the phrase “inalienable rights”). This draft united Jewish ideas with a core tenet of the Western philosophical tradition, the championing of natural rights.

The Beham-Davidowitz draft was ultimately abandoned. However, a few choice words from this draft did find their way into the final declaration. Echoing America’s declaration, Beham concluded his document with an appeal to “divine Providence,” which translated into Hebrew as tzur Yisrael. Tzur Yisrael endures as the only reference to God in the final draft of Israel’s Declaration of Independence. The Beham-Davidowitz draft was not the only draft rejected by Ben Gurion’s committee. A group of lawyers from the Labor Zionist movement drafted a declaration whose main objective was to justify Israel’s independence. Future President of Israel Zalman Shazar also penned his own declaration, drawing upon the Jewish prophetic tradition. This draft was combined together with an earlier iteration to form the version that landed on Ben Gurion’s desk a mere three days before independence was declared. Ben Gurion’s edited final product is defined by three core assertions — that the state would be a Jewish state, that it would guarantee the rights of its citizens and that it would be a sovereign state, left to sink or swim on its own. With regards to the Jewish people’s ancient origins, the document is decidedly brief, stating simply, “in the land of Israel the Jewish people were born.” However, traditional Judaism emphasizes the Jewish national consciousness emerging in Egypt and the Torah being given at Sinai.

Rogachevsky and Zigler argue that this brevity resulted from Ben Gurion’s decision to emphasize the three assertions cited above. He felt the need to balance between more explicit theological justifications and an avoidance of specifically Jewish religious references. This tension is also reflected in the use of the aforementioned expression tzur Yisrael, a phrase that can be interpreted simultaneously as a reference to God or as a religiously-neutral reference to Jewish survival. With regard to individual rights, Rogachevsky and Zigler asserted that Israel’s declaration proved successful in that regard, and that individual rights were guaranteed and minorities protected by the fledgling State of Israel even amidst the harshness of the Independence War. Rogachevsky and Zigler also noted with excitement the growing movement among Israelis to celebrate their state’s declaration and reclaim its founding principles.

In a similar fashion, America was initiated by Abraham Lincoln in postbellum America in order to reclaim the “first principles” upon which the United States was founded. Israel’s renewed interest in its founding moment manifests in public displays of its declaration in art and media.  While contemporary Israeli courts recognize the declaration as a “vision and credo” of the state, Rogachevsky and Zigler argue it's actually an articulation of principles. Israel’s emerging constitutional framework has emphasized individual rights, but it is those three themes present in Ben-Gurion’s declaration that guide Israel’s political journey. Ben-Gurion faced many of the same ambiguities that currently divide Israel’s left and right – questions pertaining to Jewish identity, theology and sovereignty. The delicate balance Ben-Gurion struck in the declaration defines both the tensions and triumphs at the heart of Israeli society.

Rabbi Soloveichik concluded the event by posing a question to the authors: what should future generations take away from the story and content of declaration? Rogachevsky asserted that the answer lies in the founders resolve to defend Israel from her enemies while not losing sight of her founding principles and what it means to be both a Jewish state and a state of rights. Zigler noted the covenantal nature of both America and Israel’s declarations and how, in Israel, Jews from across the globe are united by the ideas presented in their declaration and galvanized by principles that, even when articulated imperfectly, can hold a society together.