FOUNDING OF ISRAEL

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When was the modern State of Israel Founded?

Palestine Post (now known as Jerusalem Post) May 16, 1948

On Friday May 14, 1948 (the day in which the British Mandate over Palestine expired) the Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel was signed by members of the National Council gathered at the Tel Aviv Museum, representing the Jewish community in the country and the Zionist movement abroad. It went into effect at midnight, Tel Aviv time.

• Eretz Israel (the Land of Israel) was the birthplace of the Jewish people. Here their spiritual, religious and political identity was shaped. Here they first attained to statehood, created cultural values of national and universal significance and gave to the world the eternal Book of Books.
  
  
• Jews strove in every successive generation to re-establish themselves in their ancient homeland... they made deserts bloom, revived the Hebrew language, built villages and towns, and created a thriving community, controlling its own economy and culture, loving peace but knowing how to defend tself...
  
  
• The State of Israel ... will foster the development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants; it will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel; it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture; it will safeguard the Holy Places of all religions; and it will be faithful to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations.
  
  
• We extend our hand to all neighbouring states and their peoples in an offer of peace and good neighbourliness, and appeal to them to establish bonds of cooperation and mutual help with the sovereign Jewish people settled in its own land.

Eliahu Epstein of The Jewish Agency sent a letter to President Truman, dated May 14, 1948 announcing the event. Truman responded with recognition of Israel by the United States only 11 minutes after the declaration in Tel Aviv.

Sources and additional reading on this topic:

• Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel
• Provisional government: May 14, 1948 - March 8, 1949
• Truman Library Israel Documents
• The Establishment of the State of Israel
• Israel Independence Day
• State of Israel is Born