Tel Aviv - Independence Hall

Israel's declaration of indepence came at a bad time.  All the surrounding Arab nations were at war with the nascent state, and were blockading access to Jerusalem.  The British had proposed  disjointed, indefensible boundaries separating Arabs and Jews. U.S Secretary of State George Marshall said any declaration should wait. Despite that, David Ben Gurion and five other of his provisional Council of State, a bare majority, voted to go forward with the formation of the new nation of Israel.

Architecturally, Independence Hall underwhelms.
But it's a very secure building, important in a war zone.

I learned about this precarious beginning while attending a tour of Independence Hall, the former residence of Tel Aviv's first mayor, Meir Dizengoff.  The ceremony took place just before Shabbat, at 4 p.m. on  May 14,1948, and just before the British renounced rights to the territory.  The wording of the declaration was finalized an hour before the ceremony and David Ben Gurion read it while the assembly, including a young Golda Meir, cried with joy.

Leah, our tour guide, in front of the famous podium. 
Ben Gurion sat to her left, under a portrait of Herzl, who first envisioned a Jewish state. 

From Israel's Declaration of Independence:

Accordingly, we members of the People's Council, representatives of the Jewish Community of Eretz-Israel and of the Zionist Movement, are here assembled on the day of the termination of the British Mandate over Eretz-Israel and, by virtue of our natural and historic right and on the strength of the resolution of the United National General Assembly, hereby declare the establishment of a Jewish state in Eretz-Israel, to be known as the State of Israel.