The Proclamation and the Holiday Machine
On Iyar 5, 5708 (1948), David Ben-Gurion proclaimed Israel an independent state at a ceremony in Tel Aviv. Since then, the fifth of Iyar has been a national holiday celebrated by barbecues, hikes, concerts, and the awarding of the Israel Prize. In many synagogues, a special service including Hallel is recited. What began as a declaration from the top became a ritual calendar for the state, with public celebration, religious observance, and official prizes all folded into the same national script.
The article appeared in a monthly Jewish history roundup that also noted other dates and events, including the 90th anniversary of public broadcasting in Israel and the 60th anniversary of the now-defunct Educational Television station, whose programs were transferred to KAN 11. It said the first broadcast went on air in March 1966. It also said this year marks the 90th anniversary of public broadcasting in Israel and that excerpts from the archives are being televised or played on the radio for much of this year. The media apparatus, naturally, gets its own commemorative spotlight.
Who Gets Remembered, Who Gets Managed
The roundup also said that on April 18, 1940, Joseph Goldstein was born. It identified him as an American biochemist who received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1985 for the discovery that human cells have low-density lipoprotein, or LDL, receptors that remove cholesterol from the blood, leading to the development of statin drugs that significantly reduce the risk of cholesterol-related diseases, notably coronary heart disease. The piece moves through these dates like a state-approved archive, sorting memory into sanctioned milestones.
It said that on April 19, 1943, after 265,000 Jews were deported to the Treblinka death camp and another 100,000 Jews died of disease and starvation, the remaining 35,000 Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto, from an original 400,000 and 30% of the entire population of Warsaw, staged an organized uprising and drove back the Nazis when they began the final liquidation of the ghetto. It said approximately 300 Germans and 7,000 Jews were killed in the fighting, that the Jews held out until May 16, and that besides a few dozen fighters who escaped through the sewers, the remaining Jews were sent to their deaths in Treblinka. The article places this uprising in the same historical frame as official holidays and state ceremonies, a reminder that resistance and commemoration are not the same thing.
It said that on April 20, 1799, Napoleon issued a proclamation to the Jews of Palestine promising the "reestablishment of ancient Jerusalem," coupled with a plea for their support, and that this was the first promise by a modern government to establish a Jewish state. The promise came from an emperor, because empires love to dress domination up as destiny.
The State Calendar and Its Enforcers
The piece said that Iyar 4 is Remembrance Day, or Yom Hazikaron, the official memorial day for the soldiers who fell in Israel’s wars, when all places of entertainment are closed, flags are flown at half-mast, people visit military cemeteries, ceremonies are held, and the country comes to a halt during a siren while observing two minutes of silence. It said that Iyar 6 is the yahrzeit of Rabbi Levi ben Gershom, also known as Ralbag and Gersonides, described as a philosopher, exegete, astronomer, and author. It said that as an astronomer he influenced Copernicus and invented the Jacob’s Staff, a quadrant used for centuries by navigators, and that he also reportedly invented the camera obscura, which threw images on a screen and was the forerunner of the modern camera.
The roundup continued with April 24, 1873, when Joseph Poliakoff was born. It identified him as a Russian-born British sound engineer and inventor of a device that allowed for synchronized audio on film, the radio volume control, a magnetic induction loop that allowed hearing-impaired people to hear in auditoriums or theaters, the paging beeper, and personal hearing aids. On April 25, 1920, it said, the San Remo Resolution was adopted at the post-World War I Allied Supreme Council, allocating League of Nations mandates for the administration of three then-undefined Ottoman territories in the Middle East: Palestine, Syria, and Mesopotamia. It said the resolution made Britain responsible for putting into effect the Balfour declaration in favor of the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, with Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations as the basis for the British Mandate, and that it transformed the Balfour Declaration from a letter of intent into a legally binding foundational document under international law. It also said it laid the political foundation for the creation of the 22 Arab League states, none of which had existed as an independent country previously.
That is the language of mandates, declarations, and legal foundations: the paperwork of power, stamped and filed before ordinary people ever get a say.
The article then listed birthdays on April 26 for Ludwig Wittgenstein in 1889, Bernard Malamud in 1914, and Arno Penzias in 1933, identifying Penzias as a laureate of the 1978 Nobel Prize in Physics. It said that on April 27, 1945, Lee Felsenstein was born, identifying him as an American computer engineer who played a central role in the development of the personal computer, and said he was the designer of the Osborne 1, the first mass-produced portable computer, and of the shared-memory video display module board, which was widely copied and became the basis for the standard display architecture of all personal computers.
It said that on April 28, 1838, Tobias Asser was born. It identified him as a Dutch lawyer and legal scholar who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1911 for his work in the field of private international law, in particular establishing the Hague Conference on Private International Law. It said that on April 29, 1881, major pogroms lasting nearly a year began in Russia, incited by the interior minister, ultimately leading to the antisemitic May Laws. It said that on April 30, 1925, the Zionist Revisionist party was founded by Ze’ev, also called Vladimir, Jabotinsky. It said he demanded a more aggressive policy toward the British, believing that only worldwide pressure would force them to abide by the mandate, and that his followers, who included Menachem Begin, became the founders and leaders of the Israeli right-wing political parties.
The roundup also said that Iyar 14 is Second Passover, or Pessah Sheni, and that when the Temple was standing, anyone unable to bring the Passover lamb at the proper time on Nisan 14 could bring it one month later, citing Numbers 9. It said that nowadays, in the words of Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak of Lubavitch, this teaches that "no situation is ever completely lost." It said that on Iyar 15, 2448, or 1313 BCE, manna, the "bread from heaven," began to fall for the first time in the desert of Tzin and sustained the Children of Israel during their 40 years of wandering through the desert, citing Seder Olam 5 and Kiddushin 38a.
It said that on May 3, 1898, Golda Meir was born in Kyiv, raised in Milwaukee, and made aliyah in 1921. It said she served as head of the Jewish Agency, ambassador to Russia, labor minister, foreign minister, and Israel’s fourth prime minister from 1969 to 1974, and described her as one of the first female heads of state ever and as the "strong-willed, straight-talking, gray-bunned grandmother of the Jewish people." It quoted her as saying, "No matter what they throw at us, we will beat them."
The roundup said that on May 4, 1947, the Irgun Zeva’i Leumi, or Etzel, an underground organization fighting for an independent Jewish state, broke into the British prison fortress at Acre and freed 41 Jewish prisoners, and that this action was later immortalized in the movie Exodus. It said that Iyar 18 is Lag Ba’omer, the 33rd day of the Omer, and that Rabbi Akiva, who was a poor and ignorant shepherd until he was 40 years old, became the greatest sage of his time, with 24,000 students. It said that in the weeks between Passover and Shavuot circa 120 CE, a plague broke out among his students because they did not conduct themselves with love and respect for one another, that every day some students died, and that on the 33rd day of the Omer the deaths stopped and the day became a joyful one.
It said that on May 6, 1856, Sigmund Freud was born. It identified him as the Austrian psychiatrist who founded the psychoanalytic school of psychology, best known for his theories of the unconscious mind and the defense mechanism of repression and for creating the clinical practice of psychoanalysis, and said his theories were opposed at first but in time profoundly changed the way in which people see themselves. It said that on May 7, 1945, Germany surrendered unconditionally to the Allies, ending World War II. It said that on May 8, 1943, Mordechai Anilewicz, commander of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, was killed in the main bunker at the age of 24. It said he had united the various factions, published a newsletter called Against the Stream, and started an urban kibbutz.
It said that on May 9, 1945, the Theresienstadt ghetto/concentration camp was liberated by Soviet forces, and that of the 155,000 prisoners that passed through there, 124,352 were either killed there or deported to extermination camps. It said that on May 10, 2010, the 31 states of the OECD voted unanimously to invite Israel to become a member, recognizing its economic achievements. It said that on May 11, 1960, Adolf Eichmann, in charge of implementing Hitler’s Final Solution, was captured in Buenos Aires by Israeli Mossad agents, who smuggled him out of the country to stand trial in Jerusalem for his crimes against the Jewish people, crimes against humanity, and war crimes.
The article said that on May 12, 1948, Beit She’an was captured by the Hagana in the War of Independence. It said that on May 13, 1939, 937 Jews fled Nazi Germany on board the luxury liner MS St. Louis, intending to reach Cuba and then the US to begin a new life, but were turned away from Cuba, the US, and Canada before being forced to return to Europe, where more than 250 were murdered by Nazis. It said Captain Gustav Schroeder was posthumously named one of the Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem for his valiant efforts to find them refuge.
Finally, it said that on May 14, 1948, the first legislative act of the newly declared provisional government of the State of Israel was the repeal of the British White Paper of 1939, which had restricted Jewish immigration and the acquisition of land in pre-state Israel. It said that Iyar 28 is Jerusalem Day, or Yom Yerushalayim, and that on this date in 5728, or 1967, Israeli paratroopers liberated the Old City of Jerusalem during the Six Day War, restoring Jewish control of the Temple Mount, Judaism’s holiest site. It said soldiers danced, sang, and cried at the Western Wall, the site of Jewish prayers for centuries, and that Iyar 28 is celebrated today as Jerusalem Day, which includes a special service of prayer composed by the Chief Rabbinate, commemorating the reunification of the Holy City, which has stood as the capital of the Jewish nation for 3,000 years.
It said that Iyar 29, 2884, or 877 BCE, is the yahrzeit of the prophet Samuel, also called Shmuel, the last of the biblical Judges, who led the people of Israel in the four centuries between the passing of Joshua and the anointment of Saul as the first king of Israel in 879 BCE. It said that when Saul failed to properly implement his duties as king, Samuel anointed David to succeed him, and that Samuel was the author of the biblical books of Judges, Samuel, and Ruth.