Tales of our Homeland #3: Ben-Gurion’s Husband Problem

Notes and further reading:

Panels 2 – 5 This story is based on a well known event that can be found in many sources. But here is a good retelling from the Tablet website: David Ben-Gurion, One Woke Dude. 

Panel 4  Baal

Panel 5  Hosea 2:18 

Panel 6  Israeli Declaration of Independence Full text – Proclamation of Independence   

The particular paragraph reads: 

“The State of Israel will be open for Jewish immigration and for the Ingathering of the Exiles; it 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.”

Panel 9 David Ben-Gurion 

See the first film clip in this article for an insight into Ben Gurion’s complicated relationship to the Biblical prophets – Ben-Gurion on Israel, Peace and Back Pain: A Lost Interview Is Brought to Life 

Israel’s Declaration of Independence also includes this paragraph near the end: “We appeal to the Jewish people throughout the Diaspora to rally round the Jews of Eretz-Israel in the tasks of immigration and upbuilding and to stand by them in the great struggle for the realization of the age-old dream – the redemption of Israel.”  

What did the secular Zionist signers like Ben Gurion mean by, “the age-old dream – the redemption of Israel”? I think they meant something along the lines of what is being claimed in Panels 8 & 9. The prophets articulated values that could not be manifested in Iron Age societies. In the modern world, perhaps they can be brought to fruition.  

Photo of the Memo: 

Michael Unterberg (author) and Zvi Ron (artist) have been making comics together since they were classmates in Yeshivah of Flatbush elementary school. They both live in Gush Etzion.

Please do not reuse without permission from the authors. Thank you.