Israel Independence day

Israelis observe Yom Ha’atzmaut to commemorate the Israeli Declaration of Independence, which was proclaimed by future Israeli prime minister David Ben-Gurion on behalf of the Yishuv on 14 May 1948.The mood outside of Ben-Gurion’s residence just prior to the announcement was joyous: The Jews of Palestine … were dancing because they were about to realize what was one of the most remarkable and inspiring achievements in human history: A people which had been exiled from its homeland two thousand years before, which had endured countless pogroms, expulsions, and persecutions, but which had refused to relinquish its identity—which had, on the contrary, substantially strengthened that identity; a people which only a few years before had been the victim of mankind’s largest single act of mass murder, killing a third of the world’s Jews, that people was returning home as sovereign citizens in their own independent state.