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Celebrating 60 Years of Israel's Challenges and Achievements

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Celebrating 60 Years of Israel's Challenges and Achievements Celebrating 60 Years A joint project of the of Israel’s Challenges DEPARTMENT FOR ZIONIST ACTIVITIES, WORLD ZIONIST ORGANizaTION and Achievements MiNISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFaiRS STATE OF ISRAEL Produced with the cooperation of The Zionist Archives and the Department for Zionist Activities in Israel , World Zionist Organization and with the generous support of Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael and Keren Hayesod VISITOR GUIDE World Zionist Organization State of Israel Department for Zionist Activities Welcome to the exhibition What we see when we look at things often The explanatory notes in this visitor’s guide depends on the angle from which we view them. provide a context from within which to view the That is certainly the case with Israel – which is photographs and narrative relates both to the why we have utilized the technology we have title of the poster as a whole appearing in bold in presenting this collection of photographs as well as to the captions for each of the pictures spanning the six decades of Jewish statehood. appearing in bold. As you move back and forth among the panels, We hope that as you peruse this material you you will quickly see that the past and present will develop a greater appreciation for all that overlap inseparably and that from the vantage Israel is, and that you will be inspired to deepen point of today, 60 years of struggle and triumph your understanding of the country even further. appear to pass by in the blink of an eye. There is no better way to do that, of course, than We have prepared this visitor›s guide to slow to come and visit. If a picture is worth a thousand things down a bit. So much effort has been words, then a trip here has got to be worth a invested in making Israel what it has become that million pictures. we think it important to take a moment to consider In any case, we hope you enjoy the journey, its achievements against the background of the whether you limit yourself to the time travel challenges it has faced in the past, as well as to we have set out here before you, or actually reflect on those it continues to contend with today. decide to drop by during this exciting year in Here, then, are the basics to get you started. which we are celebrating 60 years of challenges The exhibition is comprised of 14 panels, and achievements. each dedicated to a particular theme. Each poster consists of two photographs juxtaposed Dr. David Breakstone on one another, one in black and white from the Member of the Zionist Executive first years of Israel’s independence (or even earlier), Head of the Department for Zionist Activities and the other, in full color, from the present. World Zionist Organization In the year 5657 (1897), The story of Israel is the story of a dream come true. It is a Almost 2000 years prior to the establishment of the State ERETZ-ISRAEL was the at the summons of the dream few believed could be realized when the first practical of Israel in 1948, the Jews had been dispersed to the four birthplace of the Jewish steps were taken just over a century ago to create the corners of the earth. The common assumption was that spiritual father of the infrastructure on which a Jewish state would eventually be until the Messiah should appear, there was little reason people. Here their Jewish State, Theodor built. When Theodor Herzl published his political manifesto to believe that this condition would change. After being spiritual, religious and Herzl, the First Zionist Der Judenstaat in 1896, asserting that the only answer to forcibly exiled from our land following the destruction political identity was Congress convened and the Jewish question was for the Jewish people to have a of Jerusalem by the Romans in 70 C.E., we had become shaped. Here they first proclaimed the right of state of its own, his ideas were generally rebuffed by Jews accustomed to living in a fragile relationship with those in attained to statehood, the Jewish people to and gentiles alike. Even when he managed to gather some whose midst we dwelled. We wept quietly by the rivers of created cultural values 200 delegates at the First Zionist Congress in Basle a year Babylon, all the time longing for the eventual return to Zion. national rebirth in its later, he was aware that his ambitions were the object of In the meantime, all that remained of the Temple, once the of national and universal own country. ridicule. «In Basle I founded the Jewish State,” he wrote in his proud symbol of Jewish sovereignty, were the mammoth significance and gave Israel’s Declaration diary. “Surely if I were to declare this aloud today I would be awe-inspiring blocks of quarried stone that had served to the world the eternal of Independence mocked everywhere, but within five years, certainly within to enclose the mount on which it stood. For centuries Book of Books. 50 years, the entire world will recognize it.» These prophetic these were the focus of our prayers for the resurrection of words were penned in 1897, precisely half a century before a Jewish state, but they were also the symbol of our exile the United Nations provided the international recognition and became known as the Wailing Wall. Since the city of After being forcibly for Jewish statehood that Herzl had so tenaciously sought. Jerusalem was reunited in 1967, these same stones, now exiled from their land, Ever since, we have been engaged in fulfilling the dream. referred to as the Western Wall (or Kotel in Hebrew), have the people kept faith This exhibition constitutes a modest documentary of those become a source of inspiration for Jews everywhere, and a with it throughout their efforts. It is dedicated to celebrating 60 years of Israel’s tangible representation of the physical and spiritual challenge Dispersion and never challenges and achievements as an opportunity to reflect of maintaining Jewish independence today. ceased to pray and hope as well as to rejoice. for their return to it and for the restoration in it of their political freedom. Israel’s Declaration 1 of2 Independence ERETZ-ISRAEL was the When David Ben-Gurion officially declared Israel’s While the Land of Israel that the Jews returned to was indeed Jews strove in every birthplace of the Jewish independence on May 14, 1948, it was the culmination of generally barren and abandoned, it wasn’t always ownerless – successive generation to nearly seven decades of pioneering efforts that gave tangible though as a rule the owners were either absentee landholders people. Here their expression to the age-old yearning for return. Already in or the Ottoman Empire itself. Accordingly, from the earliest days re-establish themselves in spiritual, religious and 1882, a group of 14 idealistic ex-university students left of the Zionist enterprise, every effort was made to establish their ancient homeland. political identity was Czarist Russia for the Land of Israel, determined to radically legal title over any territory that the pioneers sought to inhabit. In recent decades they shaped. Here they first transform their lives – and the life of the Jewish people – In order to implement this policy, the 5th Zionist Congress returned in their masses. attained to statehood, by working in agriculture and becoming self-sufficient. established the Jewish National Fund (Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael) Pioneers, ma›pilim created cultural values Many who came in their wake were equally committed for the express purpose of purchasing land that would be “the (immigrants who arrived to this new “religion of labor” that would revitalize and property of the Jewish people as a whole.” But ownership was of national and universal reinvigorate the Jewish people, and purposefully engaged only part of the story. Settling the land itself has always been prior to 1948 in defiance significance and gave in working the land, reforesting hills that had been barren integral to the ethos of the Zionist enterprise, as well as one of of the British) and to the world the eternal for centuries and bringing life to the dessert under the its major challenges from the earliest days of the movement. defenders, they made Book of Books. harshest of circumstances. They cleared millions of stones While the temporary tent camp of yesteryear has long ago deserts bloom, revived After being forcibly by hand, ploughed untold acres of fields with the most been replaced by residential complexes that are now the the Hebrew language, primitive machinery (that they had to pull themselves when end product of the most sophisticated contemporary town exiled from their land, donkeys weren’t available), and contended with the most planning, the emotional connection to the land, expressed built villages and towns, the people kept faith adverse climatic conditions in struggling to bring vitality most unequivocally through its physical settlement, continues and created a thriving with it throughout their to this barren land. Who could have imagined back then that to be fundamental to the Israeli psyche today. Calls to settle community controlling Dispersion and never the challenge of making every drop of water count in a region Israel’s periphery, whether in the Negev, the Galilee, or the its own economy and ceased to pray and hope where rain is less than scarce would give rise to the development country’s southern border, continue to resonate with the culture, loving peace for their return to it and of the most sophisticated computerized drip irrigation system idealism of the pioneering spirit that brought the state into but knowing how to in the world? Now that system, along with revolutionary being in the first place.
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