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The article focuses on David Ben-Gurion's past image using a series of programmatic and widely distributed speeches he made during Israel's first Independence Days (1948-1958). The article argues that while the founding of the state was defined as a turning point it was certainly not portrayed as a 'beginning', and that both the ancient sovereign and the exilic Jewish experience had a central place in Ben-Gurion's relevant past. At the centre of discussion stand five main characteristics of the speeches: the continuation between the state and the Jewish ancient past; the central place of a secularized messianism as a bridge between the exilic past and the sovereign present; the attempt to portray a widely accepted shared past using consensus-based terminology; the simplification of the Zionist rebellion against the exile; and the fundamental differentiation between the Jewish symbolic past and the realistic Israeli present. These five elements are analysed against the background of other texts by Ben-Gurion and his image in the research. Finally, this case study is placed within a wider context which demonstrates the Israeli quest for a Jewish framework of meaning that would authenticate the new national myths and charge them with meaning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article analyzes Israel's early efforts to establish its Independence Day as a worldwide Jewish holiday and to "export" it to the Jewish Diaspora during Israel's first decade. The first part will discuss the implementation of the holiday abroad and the blurring of boundaries between local Jewish institutions and the Israeli delegation; the second part will utilize the reports of the Israeli delegates to demonstrate the importance of Jewish celebrations abroad and the dilemmas encountered by diplomats there; and the third part will analyze the attempt to encourage Jewish tourism during the holiday as a form of pilgrimage. My main argument is that this case study demonstrates a multi-dimensional relationship between Israel and the Diaspora/Exile, rather than one based solely on negation. Moreover, by positioning the Diaspora Jews as part of the collective, the Israeli narrative has been charged with a new meaning that constituted Israel's raison d'être. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article analyzes the way in which Jewish and Israeli institutions commemorated the Balfour Declaration from its inception to the 100thanniversary in 2017 with particular emphasis on the 1967 Jubilee celebrations. In contrast to the government's desire to use the event as a vehicle to strengthen the state's legitimacy and validate the hegemony of the Labor-oriented Zionist leadership, the event reflected political and ideological fragmentation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A fundamental question still asked about the circumstances that enabled the IDF to emerge victorious from Israel's War of Independence concerns the quantity of weapons possessed by the two sides in the conflict. Although the balance of arms at the war's outset was decisively in favor of the Arab states, the leadership of the newly established state of Israel managed to close this gap. This article highlights the key role played by Czechoslovakia, which had only then begun its transformation into a Soviet satellite state, as the chief arms supplier of the IDF during Israel's War of Independence. It considers the process by which the relationship was formed and the arms acquired, the key players involved, and the procured arms' decisive impact on the hostilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses news briefs for Palestine region. Teacher Hanan al-Hroub from Palestine has been awarded Global Teacher Prize by international education nonprofit organization Varkey Foundation on March 13, 2016. Book publishers McGraw-Hill has started to destroy copies of its college political science containing anti-Israel maps. Shoes manufacturer Reebok has announced limited-edition sneakers on the occasion of Israeli independence day.

This article examines the reconstruction of a virtual Israeli male fraternity in Israel's only men's lifestyle magazine, Blazer. Modeled after the global 'new lad' magazine format, the Blazer text engages its readers by forging a homosocial joking relationship. Focusing on a satire dedicated to Israel's Independence Day, this study delineates a series of parodic discursive practices employed by the narrators to deconstruct and appropriate traditional Zionist myths on which Israel was founded. The Blazer text thus mobilizes a key cultural trope known as the anti-freier frame (to avoid being a 'sucker'), implemented as a set of manipulations to outsmart the system. The Blazer text rearticulates the relationship between self and society based on a local version of the 'yuppie' value system. We argue that while this frame appears to reject collectivist values, it serves as a critical lens for connecting yuppie masculinity with its Sabra predecessor, thereby consolidating a modified form of national solidarity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Barbequing meat is the main activity for most Israeli Jews celebrating the nation's Independence Day. It is a ritual without which the festival is incomplete, and beyond which not much is done. Identification with the nation-state is embodied through the consumption of meat that represents processed and refined chunks of Israeliness. But what is the meaning of this ritual and what does al ha 'esh ([meatj over fire) stand for? Anthropological theory tends to discuss roasted meat as an extreme expression of power, potency and masculinity, and highlights its relationship to territory and to the modern nation-state. In this article, based on ethnographic research conducted from 2002 to 2009,I stress the Israeli features of this food event. I analyze the two main features of Israeli Independence Day barbeques—handling the meat and managing the space—and argue that these features expose the ambivalent sense of power and weakness, and of stability and influx, underlining Israeli barbeques and, perhaps, Israeli society at large. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a translation of the final version of the Knesset legislation Basic Law: Israel as the Nation State of the Jewish People passed in July 2018. The text includes the basic principles, the symbols and capital of the state, language, Jewish settlement, official calendar and Independence Day and memorial days.

In this article, the attitudes of the Italian Jewish diaspora towards Israel, seen as a symbolic homeland, are analyzed. This analysis is based on the theoretical discourse on diaspora. Attitudes are explored through the participation of Italian Jews in the celebration of Yom ha'atzma'ut. Given the significance of Israel's Independence Day in the sequence of the three-day civil religious commemoration in Israel – which constitutes a sort of national narrative – the entire sequence is also considered in the analysis of the Italian diaspora. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper the attitudes of the Jewish Italian Diaspora towards Israel, seen as a symbolic homeland, are analysed. This analysis is based on the theoretical discourse on Diaspora. Attitudes are analysed through the participation of Italian Jews in the celebration of Yomha- atzmaut. Given the significance the Israeli Independence Day has within the sequence of the three days of civil religious commemoration in Israel, a sort of national narrative, the entire sequence is also considered in the analysis of the Italian Diaspora. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The construction of meaning and the invention of tradition always take place within a social and political context. Hence, the apolitical purpose of memory and the apolitical utility of national identity, in a broad sense, are linked to power; to the myriad and diverse efforts to maintain, stabilise and perpetuate that power. Focusing on official acts of commemoration, this article explores how political legitimacy—the primary basis for stabilising power—is reflected in and constructed by the constitution of national identity that is linked, in turn, to the definition of collective memory. To this end, the author examines the link between the official articulations of political legitimacy and the official constructions of the nation in Israel, and how these have changed over time. This is accomplished by providing a systematic reading of the texts constituted by the main Independence Day celebration in Israel—in particular, the ceremony known as the ‘Lighting of the Torches’—during the first fifty years of Israeli sovereignty (1952–1998). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]