Space Left Behind: Ilan Ramon’s Diary Has Arrived

He was the kind of guy everyone wants to be. Ilan Ramon's story began in Be'er Sheva in Israel's Negev desert and came to an end somewhere beyond our planet. But before he became the first Israeli astronaut, he was just Ilan – a husband, father, son, and brother. Miraculously, the diary he kept aboard Space Shuttle Columbia survived. This diary, containing his personal feelings as well as descriptions of the historic event he was a part of, somehow landed relatively intact in Texas. It later underwent complex restoration processes and recently received a warm welcome at its new home – the National Library of Israel, where it is on extended loan.

Ramon Diary832

Ilan Ramon and a page from his diary which somehow survived the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster

Ground Control: “And Columbia, Houston, we see your tire pressure messages and we did not copy your last…”

Commander Rick Husband: “Roger buh…”

That utterance by mission commander Rick Husband was the last communication sent to Ground Control in Houston, Texas from the Space Shuttle Columbia, which was on its way back to Earth on February 1, 2003.

On board the Columbia, which would disintegrate as soon as it reentered the atmosphere, was one Israeli. Almost against his will, Ilan Ramon – the first Israeli astronaut – became a national symbol in his lifetime.

Columbia Makeshift Memorial הכניסה למרכז גונסון ב 1 בפברואר 2003 לאחר שהתברר אסון הקולומביה צילום נאסא
The Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas on February 1st, 2023, after the magnitude of the Columbia disaster became clear. Photo: NASA

As the son of Holocaust survivors Tonya and Eliezer Wolferman, Ilan Ramon dreamt big when he was growing up. But “being an astronaut” was not one of those dreams. “In Israel, when you tell someone, ‘You’re an astronaut,’ it means that they aren’t…  connected [to reality], so it’s almost a joke,” he explained in one of his last interviews with American media before the Columbia took off. Still, when he accepted his assignment, he was “over the moon” with excitement.

It wasn’t the first time that Ramon was chosen to lead and carry out a mission that had never been done before. He was an outstanding, determined pilot who enlisted in the Israeli Air Force and twice returned to service after an injury. In 1980, he was sent to the U.S. as part of a small elite team tasked with learning to fly the new F-16 aircraft that Israel was about to receive. A year later, he was the youngest pilot in the squadron that flew those aircraft to Iraq to bomb a nuclear reactor being built there by Saddam Hussein’s regime.

Along with the space shuttle, an Israeli national symbol was also lost on that fateful day in February 2003. Ilan Ramon served as an example of what we can become. For his family – his wife Rona, his children, his father, and his brother – it was a completely different loss. They lost their loving partner, their father, their son and brother – a serious man with a captivating smile, a sense of humor, an almost childlike enthusiasm, and hopeless optimism. They lost the individual he was, aside from all the incredible things he achieved. “At home, you don’t think of him as if he’s Israel’s first astronaut. He’s that too, but he’s my father. Do I worry about him a bit? No, not really,” Assaf Ramon said during an interview with Israel’s Channel 10 filmed before Ilan launched into space, though it was only broadcast many years later.

Capture1
The Ramon family at home, screen capture courtesy of Israel’s Channel 13 (formerly Channel 10)

Ramon enlisted in the mission with all his heart and soul. He was well aware of the significance of what he was doing, and he took it seriously. But he was also able see the lighter side of things, and would often laugh and joke with his family.

Everything we know about Ramon’s journey to space consists of these two extremes: the national, and the personal. Among the things he brought with him onto the shuttle were items that carried with them all the weight of Jewish history: a tiny Torah scroll that had come all the way from the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, a copy of a Petr Ginz painting from the Terezin Ghetto (Moon Landscape), the last letter written by captured Israeli Air Force navigator Ron Arad, wine for Kiddush, and more. He also took with him a letter from his son Assaf (who warned his father only to open it once he had taken off) and a notebook he planned on using to record his personal experience.

יומן אילן רמון 2
One of the pages of the diary that survived, photo: National Library of Israel
Earth Seen From The Moon
Moon Landscape, the Petr Ginz painting created in the Terezin Ghetto. Ramon carried a copy with him onto the Columbia.

The notebook probably had at least one page written before lift-off, but the rest of the pages were filled in the days that followed. He wrote in a short, purposeful manner, interspersing his words with fragments of thoughts, feelings, conversations, and descriptions of routine actions that became extraordinary, not only because of the place where they were carried out.

An excerpt from the diary reads:

“Launch. No, I couldn’t believe it. Until the moment the engine(s) were ignited, I still doubted it. In the last few days of our isolation in the Cape, since the fateful discussion [on] Sunday afternoon – in those days we all already felt that [this was] real, and yet – we didn’t believe it.”

אילן רמון מרחף במעבורת החלל קולומביה צולם על ידי צוות קולומביה, נאסא
Ilan Ramon, gliding through Space Shuttle Columbia, photo: NASA

In what follows, along with other documentation from the Colombia mission, this duality can be seen again and again. It ranges from the personal to the public, from the routine to the historic. He described how he brushed his teeth and how he performed scientific experiments; he wrote to his family about how much he missed them but also mentioned, almost as an aside, conversations with the Prime Minister and the President of the United States, performing Jewish rituals such as Kiddush before the entire world, and strong friendships with the other crew members.

“Travel diary, day six. Today was perhaps the first day that I truly felt like I was really ‘living’ in space! I’ve turned into a man who lives and works in space. Like in the movies. We get up in the morning with some light levitation and we roll into the ‘family room’. Brush my teeth, wash my face, and then go to work. A little coffee. Some snacks on the way, off to the lab…a press conference with the Prime Minister, and then immediately back to work, observing the ozone layer.”

Diary excerpt
יומן אילן רמון 3
One of the pages of the diary that survived, photo: National Library of Israel

On the one hand, he was a representative of the Jewish state. All eyes were on him, and he had something to say to the entire world:

“From our perspective here in space, we look at you and see a world without borders, full of peace and splendor. Our hearts carry a prayer that all humanity as one can imagine the world as it appears to us, without borders, and can strive to live together in peace.”

From a conversation with then Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon

On the other hand, Ramon was a loving family man who missed his loved ones:

“Even though everything here is amazing, I can’t wait any longer until I see you all. A big hug to you and kisses to the kids.”

From an email Ramon sent his family the day before the scheduled landing

But he never saw them again. They waited for him at the base, excitedly watching the clock counting down the minutes till landing, and then with increasing anxiety, watching it reach zero and then switch to displaying the time elapsed since the Columbia was scheduled to land. It wasn’t long before the news channels started broadcasting the image of the space shuttle’s wreckage burning in the Texas sky. Debris from the shuttle and the astronauts’ bodies were scattered over a vast area in Texas and Louisiana. The diary, a personal and national treasure, should have disintegrated along with the shuttle and its crew, but a few weeks after the disaster, to the surprise of the search party, someone found the remains of the diary on a muddy patch of land in Texas.

צילום היומן כפי שנמצא בשדה צילום נאסא
The remains of the diary, found in Texas, photo: NASA

How is it possible that it survived? It withstood the explosion, and then a journey of several kilometers till it hit the earth. No one knows for sure, but leading researchers in the field believe that due to the light weight of the pages, the diary didn’t fall directly to the ground but probably glided slowly downwards, carried on wind currents that eventually allowed for a soft landing. Most of the damage to its pages probably only happened after it reached the ground, resulting from the humid conditions in the marshy area where it landed.

Once it was found, the diary was transferred to the Israel Museum for restoration and preservation. The wetness caused the pages to stick together and blurred the words that were written inside, turning them into shapeless ink blots. It was almost illegible, and restoring it was a complex undertaking that included the use of the most advanced technological means, with the assistance of the Israel Police’s forensics department.

Whatsapp Image 2024 03 06 At 13.34.51
Yiftach and Tal Ramon with their father’s diary, when it was still at the Israel Museum, photo: National Library of Israel

One of the pages that was recovered was apparently written while Ramon was still on the ground, before lift-off. The restoration team identified letter patterns between the ink spots that had spread across the page. To do so, they used some of Ramon’s other handwriting samples. When they tried to connect the letters and the spaces between them into a meaningful, understandable text, they discovered the words of the Jewish Kiddush prayer recited on Friday night. Ramon had made advance preparations to consecrate the wine during the time designated as “Shabbat” onboard the shuttle (which itself was an interesting question because the Jewish sabbath is from sundown on Friday till sundown on Saturday, but he had traveled somewhere without sunset), and he had made sure to write the exact wording of the prayer in advance so that he wouldn’t forget a single word.

For twenty years the diary was kept in the Israel Museum, but it was recently moved to its new home in the National Library of Israel, where it will be on extended loan.

“If only every item we received was at the level of preservation which this diary was at when it reached us from the Israel Museum,” said Marcela Szekely, head of the Library’s Conservation and Restoration Department.

יומן אילן רמון 1
One of the pages of the diary that survived, photo: National Library of Israel

After the initial intake phase, during which both sides of all pages of the diary were photographed, the diary entered the Library’s rare items storeroom. The storeroom, which serves as a highly guarded vault, is bulletproof and is under strict environmental control. The humidity and temperature are continuously monitored and adjusted to preserve the materials stored inside it.

“Later, after the diary goes through additional conservation processes at the Library, we will consider presenting it to the general public as part of the Library’s permanent exhibition,” Skezely says. “In the meantime, it is being kept in good company here. It ‘lives’ in the same room as the writings of Newton and Maimonides.”

The Library also preserves other items linked to Ilan Ramon as well as the diary of another astronaut.

In 1977, Ramon, then a 23-year-old pilot, wrote a letter to Professor Yeshayahu Leibowitz, asking him: “What is man’s purpose in this world?” Leibowitz, answered, and this correspondence in its entirety is preserved in the National Library.

In 1985, Jeffrey Hoffman, the first Jewish American astronaut, went into space on the Space Shuttle Discovery. Like Ilan Ramon, he also wrote a diary documenting his journey in space, and he had also taken with him Jewish symbols such as a small Torah scroll. In March 2023, Hoffmann visited the National Library and handed over that diary, along with several other items that are now preserved in a collection that bears his name.

יומן גף הופמן
An Astronaut’s Diary, by Jeffrey Hoffman. A copy can be found at the National Library of Israel.

The transfer of Ilan Ramon’s diary – which carries both national and personal significance – was accompanied by his sons, Tal and Yiftach.

Their father’s tragic death was not the last tragedy the family would suffer. Assaf, Ilan’s firstborn, was killed in an operational accident six years after the Columbia disaster. Rona, Ilan’s widow who turned Ilan and Assaf’s legacy into a tremendous social and educational enterprise, died of cancer in 2018.

Today, Tal, Yiftach, and Noa are the ones left carrying the flag of this amazing family that, despite all the tragedies it has known, has always continued to look ahead with its head held high.

Whatsapp Image 2024 05 22 At 10.40.181
Tal and Yiftach Ramon remove the diary from its case upon arrival at the National Library of Israel, photo: National Library of Israel

No words we write will ever be stronger or more accurate than their own:

“My name is Yiftach Ramon, and I have come here to say that my family and I insist that our name not become a symbol of tragedy or mourning. I have come here to say that people can take their grief and their mourning and turn it into action to create a better future.”

From Yiftach’s speech at the annual conference of the Israeli American Council, IAC

We at the National Library of Israel are incredibly moved to have this treasure in our collections. We are grateful for the privilege of preserving this diary, along with the spirit that created it, for future generations.

The Treasure Left Behind by the IDF Reservist Killed in Gaza

Eyal Meir Berkowitz's talent for explaining complex Mishnayot was recognized by rabbis and experts in the field. On December 7, 2023, Eyal fell in an IDF operation extracting the bodies of hostages abducted to Gaza. His family decided to cherish his memory by handing his work over to the National Library of Israel.

832 629 Blog

Many unique and fascinating stories can be linked to items preserved in the collections of the National Library of Israel. But it’s not every day that we receive a book connected to current and tragic events which we hear about on the news – and when this happens, it can be truly moving.

Here is one such recent case.

***

Eden Zachariah and Ziv Dado were abducted to Gaza on October 7. Eden, a 28-year-old from Rishon Letziyon, was kidnapped while trying to escape from the Nova festival, which she attended with her partner Ofek Kimhi – who was murdered there that day. After 67 days, her family was informed that Eden had been murdered in Hamas captivity. Ziv, a 36-year-old IDF warrant officer from Rehovot who served as a logistics supervisor for the Golani Brigade’s 51st Battalion, was killed in an encounter with terrorists on the same day. His body was taken to Gaza and he was recognized as an abducted fallen soldier held by a terrorist organization. He left behind a wife and child. Two months after Eden and Ziv were kidnapped, soldiers of the 699th Battalion – belonging to the IDF’s 551st (Reserve) Brigade (“The Arrows of Fire”) – set out to extract their bodies from the Jabaliya area of the Gaza Strip, where intelligence indicated they were being held. On the way there, a roadside explosive was detonated, targeting the Israeli troops. Two reservists were killed in the explosion. The two had been friends for years, since their time together in training – Eyal Meir Berkowitz, 28 from Jerusalem, and Gal Meir Eizenkot, 25 from Herzliya, son of the former IDF Chief of Staff and current war cabinet member Gadi Eizenkot. Other soldiers were wounded as well. Eden and Ziv’s bodies were ultimately extracted and given a proper Jewish burial in Israeli territory.

Whatsapp Image 2024 04 16 At 16.07.47
One of the last pictures of Eyal and Gal together in Gaza. Photo courtesy of the Berkowitz family

Eyal Berkowitz grew up in Susya in the Southern Hebron Hills. He completed his high school education at the local Bnei Akiva Yeshiva for Environmental Studies. Afterwards he moved on to study at the Bnei David Advanced Yeshiva in Eli.

While studying there, Eyal joined a group of students who studied Mishnah together. Eyal himself studied and memorized the Mishnah based on a small version of the Mishnah Sdurah series.

משנה סדורה
Eyal’s book of Mishnayot from his time at Eli

The first edition of the six orders of Mishnah published by Mishnah Sdurah came out in the 1990s. What made this series unique was its design and the arrangement of the text in a way that makes it easier for the student to understand the Mishnah.

Each individual Mishnah is spread out over a series of brief lines. Each line is devoted to a new sentence, a pause mid-sentence, or a particular point from within a list of several points. This structure also serves as its own form of punctuation and can also help with memorization. The spacious design also leaves room for writing comments on the page.

Eyal was able to make good use of all of this, and throughout his studies, he wrote brief comments for practically every Mishnah. As someone who always had a knack for drawing, he also occasionally added little illustrations.

Whatsapp Image 2024 04 30 At 12.18.00 (1)
Tractate Sanhedrin, with Eyal’s comments

After three years in Eli, Eyal enlisted in the IDF in 2016. He started out in Sayeret Matkal and then moved on to Maglan – both elite units. In 2022, he married Michal. They lived together in Jerusalem, where he started studying to become a doctor at Hebrew University.

But he only managed to finish his first year.

On that fateful day of Simchat Torah, Eyal and Michal were at his parent’s house in Susya. Upon learning of the scope of the terrorist assault in the Gaza border region, Eyal was immediately called as a reservist, and he soon found himself fighting inside the Gaza Strip once the ground invasion got underway.

Eyal was killed in action, a few hours before the beginning of Hannukah, on December 7, 2023. Just a few days earlier, he and Michal had marked their first year of marriage and had promised to celebrate when Eyal came back from the reserve duty.

איל
Eyal Meir Berkowitz ob”m. Photo courtesy of the Berkowitz family

A few weeks after his death, his family approached the National Library. They had found Eyal’s book of Mishnayot with his written comments, and offered to have the volume scanned and cataloged by the NLI. The idea was welcomed by the Library and the scans have already been completed. The bibliographic information accompanying Eyal’s set of Mishnayot at the Library contain a brief note in Hebrew:

The illustrator, an alumnus of the Bnei David Advanced Yeshivah in Eli in Binyamin, served in the Maglan unit and fell during a mission to extract the bodies of hostages held in the Gaza Strip on the 24th of Kislev, 5784, December 7, 2023. The volume was delivered for photocopying by his wife.

While preparing this article, we were excited to hear that aside from the scans that were uploaded to our online catalog, the family also decided to donate the book itself to the National Library, and it was indeed handed over a few days after Israeli Memorial Day.

משפחת ברקוביץ צילום מוטי דהאן
Eyal’s family handing over his Mishnayot to the National Library of Israel, May 2024. Right to left: Dr. Chaim Neriah, curator of the Judaica Collection at the National Library, Shmaya Berkowitz, his wife Riki, and Michal – Eyal’s widow. Photo: Motti Dahan

The scanned book reveals how Eyal’s comments were often brief, but were still able to very succinctly explain the intention of the Mishnah, even in places where the original text does not tell us many details.

The Mishnah, like every ancient text, is hard to read and understand without background knowledge of its subject matter. This is why commentators throughout the generations – Rashi, Maimonides, Rabbi Ovadyah of Bartenura, the Tosfot Yom Tov as well as more modern commentaries like Kehati, Safrai, and Artscroll – have been written to help readers dive in.

Eyal succeeded in illuminating the words of the Mishnah, using very brief explanations in a modern Hebrew style, with an occasional dash of humor added in. Rabbis who saw the Mishnah with his comments attested to his succinct comments containing amazing depth and great talent in connecting Mishnayot to other sources.

Here’s just one brief example: The Mishnah in Tractate Eruvin calculates the distance between two cities to allow the carrying of objects between them on Shabbat, something which would be forbidden if it involved carrying things from one jurisdiction to another. If the radius of 70 cubits and 2/3 cubits from one city touches on the same calculated area of a nearby city, they are considered a single locality or jurisdiction, and as Eyal put it, along with a small illustration: “we connect them both.” This is certainly a much clearer explanation than the Mishnah’s original formulation in Hebrew.

עירובין
Tractate Eruvin, chapter 5, Mishnah 2, Eyal’s copy

We will only add that it is a Jewish custom to study Mishnayot for the ascension of a person’s soul on the anniversary of their death, as the words “Mishnah” and “Neshamah” (soul) consist of the same letters in Hebrew.

May the memory of Eyal, Gal, and all the fallen of Israel be a blessing.

Whatsapp Image 2024 04 16 At 16.06.05
Eyal Berkowitz ob”m. Photo courtesy of Berkowitz family

Why Does Gaza Appear in This Antique Hebrew Scroll?

Jerusalem, Hebron, Safed, the tombs of the righteous in the Galilee, and... Gaza? Jewish scrolls from the 16th and 17th centuries offer an interesting selection of holy places in the Land of Israel. How did the city of Gaza end up on this list?

Gaza828

Illustration of the city of Gaza in the 17th century Yichus Ha’avot Scroll, which is kept at the National Library of Israel

A complete road atlas for the holy sites in the Land of Israel, an advertisement brochure, or a travel book? From the Middle Ages to the 16th and 17th centuries, written and illustrated compositions were circulated in the Land of Israel and in the Jewish Diaspora, claiming to present those abroad with descriptions of the Jewish holy places found throughout the land. Three of these, which were copied as illustrated scrolls, are preserved at the National Library of Israel.

These items were copies of what’s known as the Yichus Ha’Avot scroll, or in its full name as it appears in the first part of the manuscript: “Lineage of the Forefathers and the Prophets and the Righteous and the Tana’aim and the Amora’im, May They Rest in Peace, in the Land of Israel and Outside the Land, May God Establish Their Merit for Us, Amen.” As its name indicates, this scroll is mainly focused on the burial places of our ancient ancestors – from those buried in the Cave of the Patriarchs (Ma’arat Ha’Machpela) to the later tombs of the Amorites which were spread throughout the Land of Israel, and sometimes even outside of it (such as the tombs of Mordechai and Esther, Daniel, and others).

65546c101538030053c2207e A1 4a יחוס האבות
The Yichus Ha’Avot scroll, preserved at the National Library of Israel and on display in the permanent exhibition

But then, in one of the copies, above the illustration depicting a city surrounded by a wall, the following Hebrew inscription appears:

“Kfar Gaza, the city of Samson, a beautiful country”

This particular copy of Yichus Ha’Avot was copied and illustrated in Casale Monferrato in northern Italy, in 1598. As mentioned above, the illustration depicts a walled city with many towers covered with domes, some alluding to their status as mosques, some reminiscent of churches. The whole city is surrounded by a wall, and a (very) large domed gate with no doors symbolizes the entrance to the city.

990000927110205171
Yichus Ha’Avot scroll 1598

Another illustration very similar in its characteristics – in which Gaza is referred to as “the land of Samson, a beautiful country” – appears in another Yichus Ha’Avot scroll from the National Library collection, this one dating to the 17th century. Here, the illustrator imagined Gaza as an even greener and more colorful city, with the mosques appearing more prominently. The city gate is still broad and impressive, lacking doors and wide open.

Capturegaza
“Gaza is the land of Samson, a beautiful country” illustration of the city of Gaza in the Yichus Ha’Avot scroll, preserved by the National Library of Israel

Shlomo Zucker, a former member of the National Library’s manuscripts department, researched the composition and described it as follows:

“The drawings are spectacular; green and red for the trees and flowers, gold for the domes and some of the columns of the buildings […] However, the buildings – with vaults, gables, columns, and crowns in the classical style – are completely imaginary, and have nothing to do with the actual shape of the sites described in the text.” (S. Zucker, Yichus Ha’Avot or Elleh Massai, Ariel, 123-122, 5757, p. 206 [Hebrew])

Is this really how Gaza looked in those days?

Written testimony, archaeological findings, and descriptions in various travel books present a different picture of the city.

But the very fact that the descriptions and illustrations in the Yichus Ha’Avot scroll are imagined is not surprising or unusual. Scientific or geographical accuracy was not necessarily at the forefront of the minds of the writers and artists of the time. Maps and illustrations based on imagination or various graphic ideas disconnected from reality were quite common.

One of the interesting examples is the “Clover Leaf Map” by Heinrich Bünting, one original copy of which is preserved in the Eran Laor Cartographic Collection at the National Library.

The map depicts the old world in the form of a clover leaf on which three continents are represented: Asia, Europe, and Africa. Jerusalem, by the way, is located in the center of the world according to this map. On the map itself, Bunting explains the reason for his artistic choice: “The whole world is in the shape of a clover leaf, which is a symbol of the city of Hanover, my beloved birthplace.”

Dedupmrg71540295 Ie6882732 Fl7074006
The Clover Leaf Map. From the Eran Laor Cartographic Collection, the National Library of Israel

Like the famous Clover Leaf Map, the Yichus Ha’Avot scrolls also weren’t trying to be realistic or to reflect actual geography and topography. The scrolls and the illustrations inside them tried to express a visual-imagined space, emotional at its core, which made it possible to browse through them and feel like someone who was walking in the footsteps of our ancestors, as someone who is faithful and connected to the “lineage of the fathers”.

The much more surprising fact is that Gaza was added to the map of holy places at an unknown time.

In earlier and more ancient versions of the Yichus Ha’Avot scrolls, Gaza does not appear at all. Why suddenly in the 16th and 17th centuries was Gaza included on the map of holy places? Why is it described as a “beautiful country”, and why is the city where Samson the biblical hero met his death suddenly named after him – “Samson’s city”?

It should be noted that Gaza was not one of the four traditional Jewish holy cities in the Land of Israel. Moreover, various halachic discussions raised the question of whether Gaza is part of the Land of Israel, and whether the commandments that are dependent on the land must be observed there. According to most opinions, the answer is no.

So what suddenly changed at the end of the 16th century?

The fluctuations in Gaza’s status as an important or backwater city over the years stemmed from its location on the coastal road leading between the Land of Israel and Egypt. When the Crusaders conquered the Holy Land, there were no trade relations between the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem and Muslim Egypt, and Gaza was a ruined and largely abandoned city. But then the Mamluks conquered the region, and with the increased stability, the status of Gaza, which had been rejuvenated into an important roadside trading city, rose as well.

Towards the end of the Mamluk period, in 1481, Rabbi Meshullam of Volterra, a Jewish banker from Florence, visited Gaza, and his descriptions corroborate the literal description in the Yichus Ha’Avot scroll which states that Gaza is a “beautiful country”.

According to Rabbi Meshullam, Gaza was “a good and fat land”, with a small Jewish community that produced wine. But unlike the illustrations in the Yichus Ha’Avot scroll, Rabbi Meshullam described Gaza as so self-confident that it had no wall at all: “Aza is called Gaza by the Ishmaelites, and it is a good and fat land, and its fruits are very fine. And there is good bread and wine, although the wines are only made by the Jews. Its perimeter is 4 miles long and it has no walls […] it is surrounded by blue on the shore of the sea. And has about 60 Jewish homeowners […]”

Captureshimshon
Samson carries off the gates of Gaza, a mosaic from the synagogue in Hukok, Byzantine period / Photo: Jim Haberman, courtesy of Jodi Magness

Rabbi Meshullam also notes the fragment of Jewish history that is connected to the city of Gaza: It is the city where the biblical hero and judge Samson lived for part of his life, together with his wife Delilah, who ultimately brought on his demise out of greed. It is also the city where Samson was imprisoned and killed, and which he destroyed:

“And at the top of the Judaica [mound] was the house of Delilah, and Samson the hero lived in it. And near there […] I saw the great court which he overthrew with his strength and power” (Abraham Yaari, Masa Meshullam MeVolterra, Mossad Bialik, 599, p. 64 [Hebrew]).

About thirty years after Rabbi Meshullam’s visit, in 1517, an event occurred that further affected Gaza’s status in the following centuries: The war between the Mamluks and the Ottomans ended in an Ottoman victory. The Ottoman Sultan Selim I conquered the entire region, including the Land of Israel, the shores of the Red Sea, Mecca, and Medina, as well as the southern connection to the African continent – Egypt. The victory of the Ottomans strengthened the position of Gaza. From a peripheral border city, it became a city perfectly situated in the center of a vast empire.

The Ottoman victory also had additional significance. All the holy places of Islam and Judaism and most of the holy places of Christianity now fell under the control of a single regime. The Ottoman Empire developed, improved the access routes, and ensured the safety of the Muslim pilgrims who set out for the Hajj to Mecca, while also offering safety to the Jewish and Christian pilgrims. The security resulted in economic growth and the improvement of roads, which contributed to a significant increase in the volume of pilgrimage.

Samson In Dagontemple
Samson bringing down the temple of Dagon on all the celebrants and calling out “Let me die with the Philistines!”, Gustave Doré 

As it turns out. even though Gaza was not one of the four Jewish holy cities in the Land of Israel, it became a popular place to visit when making the long journey to the Holy Land.

Why?

Those who embarked on a pilgrimage for religious reasons were specifically interested in the holy places, especially in the tombs of biblical figures and righteous sages, which Gaza could not claim to have. But Samson “came to her aid”.

This is perhaps the reason why Gaza is depicted in illustrations as a walled city with its mighty gates open. The illustrators of the scrolls didn’t illustrate Gaza, the prosperous trading city without a wall, but rather as a city whose doors Samson had uprooted, leaving it with wide open gates. That’s also why they call it the “Land of Samson.”

The illustrators of the Yichus Ha’Avot scrolls knew that many of the immigrants, especially those from Italy, would pass through Gaza anyway on their way to or from Egypt. As such, they indicated to the pilgrims that although there were no tombs of note in Gaza, there was indeed a history of Jewish heroism there.

This article is based on an article by Dr. Chaim Meir Neria, curator of the Haim and Hanna Solomon Judaica Collection at the National Library of Israel, published in Etmol, issue 286 February 2024

Declaring Independence With 150 Lira in Your Pocket

In May of 1948, designer Otte Wallish was given his “mission impossible”: Get everything ready for a Declaration of Independence ceremony. You have 24 hours. Also: Were there nude images hiding behind Theodor Herzl’s portrait?

independence hall

Declaration of Independence ceremony on May 14, 1948. Photo: Rudi Weissenstein

At 11:00 AM on the morning of May 13, 1948, one day before Israel declared statehood, Otte Wallish was given a very sensitive assignment. The official graphic artist of the Hebrew Yishuv (the Jewish community in pre-State Israel) was summoned to an urgent meeting at the Tel Aviv Museum – at the time, the only museum in the first Hebrew city. He had been summoned by Ze’ev Sherf, who had only recently been appointed “Temporary Secretary of the People’s Administration”. During the hasty meeting, which lasted no more than a few minutes, Sherf assigned Otte Wallish his task: “Get the large hall of the museum ready within 24 hours. That’s where the ceremony for the Declaration of Independence will take place.” Before Wallish could even ask for details, Sherf disappeared from the room to in a rush to attend to the other pressing items on his agenda that day.

Otte Wallish at work. Source: Wallish family

Wallish was given a budget of 150 lira.

Ben-Gurion’s plan was for the ceremony to be held under a heavy veil of secrecy.

Wallish approached this urgent task with every ounce of energy he had left after having spent several sleepless nights designing the first series of stamps to be used by the state-in-the-making. As the battles of the War of Independence were underway in neighboring Jaffa, Wallish ran around the streets of Tel Aviv to purchase a wooden desk, cloth to cover up the walls that were covered in nude images behind the stage upon which the nation’s leaders would be sitting in a few short hours, and a carpet to lend the hall a more dignified ambiance. The chairs to be placed on the stage were confiscated from local cafes. The meager budget wasn’t enough to cover flags, and it wasn’t possible to get a picture of the Zionist visionary Theodor Herzl from any of the stores. He therefore borrowed both of these items from the Keren Hayesod (the United Israel Appeal). However, the flags needed to be washed, so Wallish took them to a nearby laundromat and ordered “lightning-fast washing.”

Some of the expenses that were paid for the Declaration of Statehood ceremony, from the Ari Wallish Collection

The nude statue at the entrance to the museum was covered in white cloth, and even though the War of Independence was still in its initial stages, Wallish decided to cover all the window curtains in the hall with black, as a precaution to avoid damage from possible aerial bombardments launched against Tel Aviv. It was a case of “who knows what will happen?” And as if all that wasn’t enough, Wallish was called back to Sherf’s office to receive another assignment: to prepare – without delay – a parchment upon which the Declaration of Independence itself would be written.

Wallish hurried off to the Beit HaMehandes (“engineer’s house”) at the end of Dizengoff Street. He asked to see examples of various parchments, but since he wasn’t permitted to reveal why he needed this strange request fulfilled, the clerk helping him got the feeling that this fellow was just a bit “off.” Wallish bought the parchment and brought it back to his office to test it for durability, to make sure it would last for generations to come.

The end of the Declaration of Independence, designed and prepared by Otte Walish

As soon as his dizzying spree of purchasing/borrowing/confiscating was complete, this graphic artist turned interior designer was free to prepare the hall for the historic occasion. And so, at 11:00 AM the following day, exactly 24 hours after he was assigned his task and only five hours before the declaration was signed and the State of Israel came into being, the hall was finally ready for the attendees. This was all described in a pictorial article by Pinchas Yourman in the Davar newspaper five years later, in 1953. The Hebrew article can be found online in the National Library’s Historical Press Collection.

The official invitation given to Otte Wallish to attend the Declaration of Independence ceremony. Ari Wallish Collection.

That same Pinchas Yourman described the declaration itself in his book The First 32 Minutes, as follows:

“It is unbelievable – but it is a fact; the most important and decisive ceremony ever held in Israel – the historic ceremony for the Declaration of Statehood in the Tel Aviv Museum – lasted only 32 minutes; it included one short speech; was conducted with exemplary order, and was praised afterward by its participants with the best of compliments, ranging from “great and impressive” to “once in a lifetime, moving and felt in the depths of the soul.”

Despite the cloud of secrecy cast over the location of the ceremony, the large gathering inside the Tel Aviv Museum – which had previously served as the private home of the late mayor Meir Dizengoff – guaranteed that a large crowd would show up outside the entrance hall in the hope of catching a glimpse of the most important ceremony in the country’s history. One particularly amusing story told by historian Mordechai Naor in his book The Friday that Changed Destiny concerned a guest who almost didn’t get in. The guest was Pinchas Rosen, then chairman of the small and now forgotten “New Aliyah” political party. Since Rosen had forgotten his official invitation to the ceremony at home, the guard stationed at the entrance to the museum refused to allow him to enter. None of his begging and pleading helped. He remained stuck outside until Ze’ev Sherf intervened, and Rosen, who would soon become Justice Minister of the State of Israel, was finally allowed to enter the ceremony and sign the declaration. The truth is that there was no shortage of offended parties and people with all manner of grievances trying to use all their contacts to gain entry to the prestigious event.

Ultimately, only 350 people were allowed through the doors of the museum at 16 Rothschild Blvd. The newspaper reporters didn’t even reveal where it was being held. The entire event was broadcast on the Kol Israel (“Voice of Israel”) radio station, as its inaugural broadcast.

A Broadcast From the Meeting of the Jewish National Council” – This laconic announcement informing the public of a radio broadcast on Kol Yisrael at 4 pm was published in every morning paper on May 14, 1948. This particular item is taken from HaTzofe.

Pinchas Yourman offered the following description:

“After a light banging of the (walnut-colored) gavel on the desk, everyone stood up and sang HaTikvah. In a voice that was later described in the newspapers as “trembling,” David Ben-Gurion began by uttering 15 words that have been stamped by the seal of history: “I will read for you the founding Declaration of the State of Israel, which has been approved in the first reading by the Jewish National Council.”

Upon hearing the name of the State of Israel being called out explicitly, the crowd burst into thunderous applause. One of the men sitting on the stage, Rabbi Y. L. Fishman, didn’t take part in the spontaneous applause. He burst into tears.

The haste with which the Declaration of Statehood ceremony was organized, and the amount of improvisation required in order for it to take place within such a short time didn’t manage to detract anything from the importance of the event. Ultimately, the ceremony was every bit as moving as it was brief, and it also symbolized a new beginning in many ways, for example, with new institutions (the radio station, for one) being established which would continue to accompany the new state for many years to follow.

Long live the State of Israel!