North Koreans and South Koreans alike celebrate August 15 as National Liberation Day. 2026 marks 81 years since the peninsula attained freedom from Japanese rule.
It is their second important anniversary each summer, following July 27, when in 1953 the two Koreas signed an armistice that ended three years of fighting.
The United States played a prominent role in the war, rallying a coalition through the United Nations to counteract the communist north’s attempt to conquer the entire country. Nearly two million American soldiers were sent to fight alongside South Korea, and 36,000 of them fell in battle.
After three years, the Korean War ended with the country divided at the 38th parallel. Nearly three-quarters of a century later, North Korea remains a repressive, poor, isolated country. South Korea is among the world’s richest and most technologically advanced nations.
Little known is that Israel, despite having no geographical, historical or cultural ties to Korea, became involved in the war by working to end it.
That happened following intense discussions and debates in the cabinet — the first occurring at the Rehovot home of President Chaim Weizmann on July 2, 1950, just eight days after the Korean War began — and Knesset on the question of what Israel’s participation in the U.N. coalition, if any, would be. Maki, an Israeli communist party, even advocated for the Jewish state to support North Korea to recognize the liberation of several Nazi concentration camps by the Soviet Union’s Red Army.
Since its founding at the dawn of the Cold War, Israel had followed a non-identification policy in global affairs — unaligned with either the capitalist United States or the communist Soviet Union. But in its July 1950 deliberations, Israel placed itself in the American camp — where it’s remained since.
“The Israel government opposes and condemns aggression whenever it occurs and from whatever quarter it emanates,” The American Jewish World newspaper of Minneapolis, Minnesota, in its issue of July 7, 1950, reported the Cabinet as announcing.
“It is noteworthy that… Israel voted with the U.S. and against the communist bloc,” journalist Eliezer Whartman would write of the episode in the November 1955 issue of The American Zionist magazine.
But with the War of Independence to establish a Jewish state having ended only a year earlier and its military stretched thin, Israel in July 1950 was loath to heed the U.N.’s call to dispatch soldiers. Its still-undeveloped economy meant that Israel couldn’t contribute financially to South Korea, either.
Still, the young state provided $100,000 worth of food and medications to the country, equal to about $1.4 million today.
“We Koreans appreciate the sincere help of Israel [then],” Young-sam Ma, who served as his country’s ambassador to Israel from 2008 to 2011, said in a video interview for this article. “We don’t forget that.”
In late 1950 and early January 1951, Israel would play a central role in diplomatic efforts at the United Nations in New York to end the war.
First, Israel was appointed to a 14-member Peace Observation Commission, meant to monitor the Korea crisis and other hot spots — although the panel was not dispatched to the peninsula.
More substantive were meetings at the U.N., where two Israeli diplomats serving there — Ambassador Abba Eban and advisor Gideon Raphael — along with visiting Foreign Minister Moshe Sharett devised a seven-point plan for ending the war. At a dinner hosted by U.N. Secretary General Trygve Lie, Sharett discussed the plan with a Chinese diplomat, who expressed approval. (Israel had extended diplomatic recognition to China in 1950, although the countries hadn’t formalized their relations; China was fighting alongside North Korea.) After the initiative’s sponsorship was shifted to Norway, Lie’s homeland, due to several countries’ objections to Israel’s association, the resolution was brought before the U.N.’s General Assembly and approved.
China soon rescinded its support and the resolution died. The war continued.
“Israeli diplomats made constructive and creative contributions to the discussion on how to end the Korean War,” Ma wrote in the Israel Journal of Foreign Affairs in 2010.
“Israel’s seven-point initiative and the Israeli resolution served as [a] valuable basis for the Korean War armistice negotiations. This early engagement between Korea and Israel should not be forgotten and can only enhance the relations between the two peoples.”
In 2009, Ma initiated a meaningful ceremony at his country’s embassy in Kfar Shemaryahu, honoring American-Jewish men living in Israel who had fought in the U.S. Army during the Korean War. He said he was “so touched” to participate in the annual events, which he hosted three times.
The countries’ bilateral relations have been up and down. Then-Foreign Minister Moshe Dayan closed Israel’s embassy in Seoul in 1978 due to South Korea’s strong orientation to the Arab world following the latter’s oil embargos — “a problem to this day,” said Akiva Tor, who served as Israel’s ambassador in Seoul from 2020 to 2024. More recently, South Korea’s president, Lee Jae Myung, strongly criticized Israel during the war in Gaza.
But the countries are bound by commonalities, beginning with their founding the same year and intense security threats. South Koreans admire Jews’ commitment to education and family, and many read translations of the Talmud for insight into Jewish principles of scholarship. During his time in Israel, Ma arranged for several Korean books to be translated into Hebrew.
And the countries signed a free-trade agreement in 2021; their bilateral trade reached $3 billion in 2025. Israel’s military sales to South Korea have increased “exponentially” in recent years, Tor said.
“Koreans and Israelis have very similar characteristics and mindsets,” Ma explained. “Sometimes, a minor discord can happen in the Korean-Israeli relationship. But both people have to understand that it is just a misunderstanding. Through conversations, the misunderstanding can be easily solved. The fact is: Koreans like Israel very much. Israelis like Korea very much.”
Writer-editor Hillel Kuttler may be reached at [email protected].
