State of Israel

The State of Israel was founded in 1948 in much of the biblical land of Israel. Although a small community of Jews had lived in the region since ancient times, the late 19th century witnessed a modern effort to create a Jewish homeland. Zionist pioneers arrived during this period of time and throughout the first decades of the 20th century to settle the land and establish self-governing institutions. From 1920 until 1948, Great Britain was granted a Mandate for Palestine to govern affairs of the territory in cooperation with both Jewish and Arab councils.  The United Nations approved the establishment of the Jewish State of Israel in 1947, and Israel declared its statehood the following year.

Under British Mandate, Jewish immigration to Palestine had been restricted, despite the catastrophic situation for Jews in Europe. David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister, declared in 1948 that Israel would be a home for those Jews made homeless by the Holocaust, eliminating restrictions on Jewish immigration to Palestine and providing a haven for the millions of still-displaced Jews in post-war Europe.