“Hereby declare the establishment of a Jewish state in the land of Israel – to be known as the State of Israel.”
May 14, 1948 was the last day of the British Mandate over the land of Israel. On that day, on the stage of the independence hall at the house of Dizengoff (the first mayor of Tel Aviv) a provisional state council was formed. David Ben Gurion, the first Prime Minister of the State of Israel, stood and read the Israeli declaration of independence.
29 years later on June 20, 1977 Menachem Begin was appointed the 6th Prime Minister of the State of Israel. Menachem Begin signed a peace treaty with Egypt in 1979, which is one of the most significant achievements for him and for Israel.
This year (2013) we note two great leaders of this country – 40 years for the death of Ben Gurion and we 100 years from Begin’s birth.
Every year the Israeli Ministry of Education decides to dedicate the school year to one special topic, which the schools in the country will talk about during the school year. This year’s topic was “Israeli Leaders and Leadership.” Students and teachers talked about leadership in general to learn how important it is to choose the right leader for our country.
My school – the ORT Dafna Middle School in Kityat Bialik (a city in northern Israel) – takes the concept of leadership very seriously. Two months ago my teacher came to me and told me about a leadership show that would be presented in front of a lot of people and would tell about the different leaders in Israel then and now. Leadership is a very special topic for me so I immediately agreed. At the beginning of the rehearsals I didn’t take it seriously because I didn’t see the importance, but today after 7 performances I’m sure that this is the best play I had ever taken part in!
At the beginning of rehearsals many children quit because they thought that they had too much pressure at school. We started the rehearsals with 7 students and with the school choir. I got the 2 main leading roles in the show! I was Benhamin Ze’ev Herzl (the father of modern political Zionism and a writer who had written about the vision for the Jewish state), and my second leading role was Moshe Dayan, who was, among other things, the Minister of Defense (1967-74) and the IDF Chief of General Staff (1955-58).
During the shows I felt a kind of excitement that I never had before. For the first time in my life I did the best I could and that was truly exciting.
At the end of the last show I had a big surprise – all my friends were there clapping their hands and all of them were proud and it was something that I will never forget!
Here are some pictures from the show:
Post a comment