The Revival of the Prophetic Tradition: An Interplay between Politics and Religion in The Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel

Abstract

The State of Israel was founded on May 14, 1948. David Ben-Gurion read The Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel at the founding ceremony. During the formulation of this declaration, the Israel National Foundation Committee had few opportunities to discuss the detail of the declaration, for the time is too short. This declaration was mainly formulated by some members of the Israeli Workers’ Party and two Jewish rabbis. They disputed the framework structure of the declaration, and whether the words which contains theological meaning should be deleted. For this reason, they revised the declaration many times The final version of the declaration did not show strong religious elements, but from the process of formulating the declaration and some phrases in the final text, we can still see the divergence and interplay between Zionist and rabbis when Israel was founded.