Day 573 - Ben-Gurion's anguish upon the founding of Israel

The Times of Israel Daily Briefing

The Times of Israel

News

4.4 • 864 Ratings

🗓️ 1 May 2025

⏱️ 34 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Welcome to The Times of Israel's Daily Briefing, your 20-minute audio update on what's happening in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world.

Senior analyst Haviv Rettig Gur joins host Amanda Borschel-Dan for today's episode on Israel's Independence Day.

Today, we will step back in time and attempt to get into prime minister David Ben-Gurion’s state of mind as the Jewish state is declared in 1948. We speak about the divided nation -- even as it was fighting for its mere survival against enemies on all fronts.

To understand how Ben-Gurion was thinking on that fateful May 14, 1948, we turn to two newly released images of his handwritten diary, which reveal the first prime minister’s anxieties as the newly born country headed to war against invading Arab neighbors.

We then discuss how a mere few weeks after the Declaration of Independence, one of the most painful episodes in Israeli history occurred -- the Altalena Affair. Rettig Gur explains this social turning point.

Finally, Rettig Gur expounds on the current Israeli moment and compares it to the prescient anxiety felt by Ben-Gurion and the profound test of leadership he faced so soon after the founding of the state.

Check out The Times of Israel's ongoing liveblog for more updates.

Subscribe to The Times of Israel Daily Briefing on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves and video edited by Thomas Girsch.

IMAGE: Cartoon illustrating Israelis' first election, January 25, 1948. (AP Photo/H. E. Munhall)

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Welcome to the Times of Israel's daily briefing.
0:08.3	Today is Thursday, May 1st, Day 572 of the war.
0:14.1	I'm Amanda Borschal-Dahn here with our senior analyst, Khabiv Retegur, for a special Independence Day episode.
0:21.7	Chaviv, thank you so much for joining me today.
0:23.6	Hi, Amanda. Good to be here.
0:25.1	It is so good to see you, and I have to say, just for the record, that I am obviously the most
0:29.8	patriotic here, because I, unlike you, am wearing blue and white in honor of our flag,
0:35.6	Kahul and Lavant.
0:37.0	Chaviv, what do you have to say for yourself?
0:39.0	True patriotism, Amanda, doesn't have to be worn on your sleeve.
0:43.7	So I'm not saying I'm secretly actually holier than thou.
0:48.4	It's not as secret as what you're saying.
0:51.1	Exactly.
0:52.4	Okay, anyway, Javiv, it's been a long time since we've spoken. You've been traveling
0:56.8	around. I don't go anywhere, and I've missed you. So today, I am very eager to hear your thoughts
1:03.1	as we step back in time. And we're going to try and get into the head of our first prime minister,
1:09.6	David Ben-Gurion, on the day that Israel was
1:13.5	declared a nation. We're talking about May 14th in the secular calendar, but of course this week,
1:19.6	today in terms of the Hebrew calendar. And what I want to do is we're going to talk about his mindset
1:25.8	on that day and also about the divisiveness of the
1:29.6	nation, even as the nation was facing many enemies from without. Does that sound familiar
1:36.3	to you at all, Javav? You know, it's happened on occasion. So we'll talk about all of that
	...

Transcript will be available on the free plan in 24 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The Times of Israel, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of The Times of Israel and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.