A chilling letter found in the National Library archives tells the story of Hadassah Lempel, whose voice was the last one heard during one of the fatal Battles of Latrun in 1948


A Diary from Jerusalem Under Siege
“I’m very thirsty and there isn’t a drop of water in the house. I must go down to the street, perhaps I’ll find something to drink, and thus I must cease my writing.” A peek into the siege diary of Menachem Zvi Kadari, a resident of the Old City during Israel’s War of Independence.

Naming the Soldiers: A Special Joint Project by the National Library and Facebook
A special project by the National Library in collaboration with Facebook Israel in honor of the country’s 71st Independence Day – come identify and tag your loved ones, family members and friends in these rare and historic images of IDF soldiers from the National Library collections

The Mother Who Stayed Behind to Defend Her Home During Israel’s War of Independence
Zipporah Rosenfeld, a fighter and a mother, faced an impossible dilemma: family or country?

The Kabbalistic Ceremony That Helped to Identify the Fallen Soldiers
When the thirty-five fallen soldiers of a legendary military convoy were brought for burial at Mt. Herzl, following Israel’s War of Independence, only twenty-three could be identified with certainty. To resolve the problem, Rabbi Aryeh Levin performed a little-known Kabbalistic ritual.

A Life Story in One Picture: The Photographer Who Fell in the War of Independence
The discovery of an obscure picture in a family photo-album led Adva Magal-Cohen to embark on a journey to piece together the life story of the mysterious Moshe Weizmann.