The Holocaust and the Establishment of Israel

Megillat HaAtzmaut, Israel’s Declaration of Independence, was proclaimed on May 14, 1948 by David Ben Gurion.

The document begins with the history of the Jewish people in Eretz Yisrael (The Land of Israel), our connection to the Land in the TaNaCh (Bible), our exile, our hope to return and ultimately the establishment of the Modern State of Israel and what that entailed.

As we commemorate Yom HaShoah this week, I would like to focus on the sixth paragraph of Megillat HaAtzmaut which speaks about the Holocaust:

The catastrophe which recently befell Am Yisrael (the nation of Israel) – the massacre of millions of Jews in Europe – was another clear demonstration of the urgency of solving the problem of the Jewish nation’s homelessness by re-establishing the Jewish State in Eretz Yisrael, which would open the gates of the homeland wide to every Jew and confer upon the Jewish people the status of a fully privileged member of the comity of nations.

Our enemies wanted to totally wipe out the Jewish people but instead we actually became a nation that was recognized by The United Nations.

The word Jewish is used six times in this paragraph (once as Yisrael and five times as Yehudi). Some say that it is not a coincidence but rather alludes to the six million Jews who perished in the Shoah.

We read in Shmot 1:12:

The more [the Egyptians] oppressed him, the more [B’nai Yisrael] increased and spread.

The more our enemies try to attack us, the stronger we become.

Haim Gouri (1923-2018), Israeli poet, novelist, journalist and documentary film maker was part of the Palmach and participated in operations against the British Mandate in Palestine. He was sent to Hungary in 1947 to help Holocaust survivors emigrate to Israel and then fought in Israel’s War of Independence.

Haim Gouri comments on the sixth paragraph:

The State of Israel was not created because of the Holocaust. Rather, it was created despite the worst tragedy in our history.

Haim Gouri still thought that this paragraph was an important component of Megillat HaAtzmaut as he was part of that period of history and saw firsthand all of the different pieces that went into the founding of the State of Israel.