Israel's Declaration of Independence Read out by David Ben-Gurion
14 May 1948, Tel Aviv
An excerpt from Story of Israel
The Jewish people came into being in Eretz Israel [the Land of Israel]. Here their spiritual, religious and political identity was shaped. Here they first achieved statehood, created cultural values of national and universal significance, and gave to the world the eternal Book of Books.
After being forcibly exiled from their land, the people remained faithful to it throughout their Dispersion and never ceased to pray and hope for their return to it and for the restoration in it of their political freedom.
Impelled by this historic and traditional attachment, Jews strove in every successive generation to re-establish themselves in their ancient homeland. In recent decades they returned in their masses. Pioneers, immigrants coming to the Land of Israel despite restrictive legislation, and defenders, they made deserts bloom, revived the Hebrew language, built villages and towns, and created a thriving community controlling its own economy and culture, loving peace but knowing how to defend itself, bringing the blessings of progress to all the country's inhabitants, and aspiring towards independent nationhood.
In the year 5657 [1897], answering the call of the spiritual father of the Jewish State, Theodor Herzl, the First Zionist Congress convened and proclaimed the right of the Jewish people to national rebirth in its own country.
The latest edition of Finest Hour, “The Journal of Winston Churchill and his Times” (Number 183) contains an article by Cita Stelzer entitled “Working with Winston: The Unsung Women Behind Britain's Greatest Statesman”. Cita Stelzer writes about Churchill's secretaries, and she credits Martin with providing valuable sources on them for research.
I believe Martin met all of Churchill's secretaries and gave them a rightful place in Churchill's story. Notable among them, for both Martin's friendship with her and for the archival material she gave him, was Elizabeth Layton Nel, who had been one of Churchill's secretaries, from 1941-1945, during the difficult years of the Second World War. Elizabeth Nel gave Martin the letters she had sent home to her parents in Canada, letters in which she wrote openly about her life.
In the film Darkest Hour, Elizabeth Nel is portrayed by Lily James in a role in which poetic licence is stretched, but still it shows her important role in Churchill's office during the war years.
In 2008, I had the opportunity to meet Elizabeth Nel in what was to be her last trip to London as she died the following year. She had come to London with her daughter. For Martin it was a lovely reunion. Martin had visited her in 1984 in South Africa while filming the Churchill story there.
Michael Brown, writing a piece in WND entitled “Why Russian Jews Dreaded Easter Weekend” has several inaccuracies that call out for clarification.His premise is that Jews in Russia were subjected to anti-Jewish violence that had been instigated by Christian religious leaders during Easter holidays.Unfortunately, the examples he uses do not reflect his premise.
Brown quotes a passage from Martin's book, The Holocaust, in which Martin Rosenblum, a survivor of Dzialoszyce in Poland, describes the mass murder of 2,000 Jews that took place on 2 September 1942.
I have had email correspondence with Chinthaka Nanayakkara, a writer in Colombo, Sri Lanka, who has gone through Sir Martin's website with a fine-tooth comb and made very worthwhile suggestions. I wrote to Chinthaka when I heard about the horrendous attack last week.
This is what he writes:
What hurts me most is that it feels like we have reverted back to that accursed time once more when we regarded each other with suspicion, went shopping with a troubled mind, boarded the public transport with deep misgivings whether we would see our loved ones ever again, and went to church, mosque and temple with no hopes of consolation. Oh Esther, we are a very silent country. We have nothing against anyone. Why so much revenge?
On May 2nd, Jews around the world will commemorate Yom Hashoah, a day in remembrance of Jews killed during the Holocaust. In Israel, sirens will wail and everyone will stop in their tracks to remember families, communities, culture and a way of life destroyed. Seventy-five years on, a murderous ideology is still destroying families, communities and the very fabric of civilisation. Chinthaka's questions still await answers.
“Hillsdale College recently acquired the entire working library and archives of the late Gilbert, the official biographer of Sir Winston Churchill from 1968 yo 2012, who died in 2015.”
“Is it that the groaning shelves of books on appeasement in our libraries and bookshops are, because they make some analytical points, not “narrative”? Or is it that AJP Taylor, Donald Cameron Watt, David Reynolds, Richard Overy, RAC Parker, Martin Gilbert and all the other historians who have tilled this furrow (all cited by Tim Bouverie), not to mention Winston Churchill himself, are somehow not 'major'?” Hermann Herald, https://hermannherald.com/even-astronauts-fear-the-left/33964/, “Even Astronauts Fear the Left,” by Michael Massai, posted 21 April 2019:
“As regards the Bengal famine, Churchill's official biographer, the late Sir Martin Gilbert, whom I personally knew to be among the most honest writers I ever met, said:'Churchill was not responsible for the Bengal Famine.I have been searching for evidence for years:none has turned up.The 1944 Document volume of the official biography (Hillsdale College Press) will resolve this issue finally.'”
"Fleeing persecution in Europe, thousands of Jewish immigrants settled in Palestine after World War II. Renowned historian Martin Gilbert crafts a riveting account of Israel’s turbulent history, from the birth of the Zionist movement under Theodor Herzl to the unexpected declaration of its statehood in 1948, and through the many wars, conflicts, treaties, negotiations, and events that have shaped its past six decades—including the Six Day War, the Intifada, Suez, and the Yom Kippur War. Drawing on a wealth of first-hand source materials, eyewitness accounts, and his own personal and intimate knowledge of the country, Gilbert weaves a complex narrative that’s both gripping and informative, and probes both the ideals and realities of modern statehood."
1 June 2019, Professor Shirli Gilbert, speaking on “Israel and the Diaspora Today”, 8pm A new course on offer: Turning Points in Jewish History
Previous Events
March 11
The Centre sponsored a book at Jewish Book Week, Pogrom, The Tilt of History, by Steven Zipperstein, who had met Martin when Steven was at Oxford.
March 5
James Loeffler, Professor of Jewish History, University of Virginia, spoke on his research into Jews and Human Rights.
One of our upcoming projects is to have an exhibit of Sir Martin's postcards highlighting the (ancient?) practice of writing, stamping, and mailing post cards.
We are currently collecting information on what might be available, so if you were fortunate to be on Sir Martin's postcard list, please let me know the time and place he sent them from, and your connection to him.
