Page 34 - big friday
P. 34
It was not surprising that the man thought him slightly mad.
W allisch decided to forego performing the test there, and tried it out in his
own office instead: he dipped the parchment in water, set a flame to it, and was
eventually convinced that it would do.
W ork continued in the hall of the museum throughout the night, concluding
on Friday at noon. Meanwhile, Wallisch borrowed the portrait of Herzl from
Keren HaYesod, ordered that the frame be repaired, got hold of two national
flags, and sent them for super-quick laundering.
H-Hour: the parchment is left blank
Throughout Friday, a committee of the People's Administration sat in the hall
of the JNF, working on the wording of the Declaration of Independence. Hours
passed, and the final version was not yet ready. During the last hour before the
ceremony, the committee was still sitting on the top floor while Wallisch was
pacing about with the parchment, his eyes on the clock. At the very last moment,
at H-Hour, the wording of the declaration was completed, typed on a typewriter.
There was no time for anything but to paste the sheet of paper onto the
parchment, and the representatives of the State Council signed directly on the
parchment, while Moshe Shertok held it steady. Davar reported, on May 16, 1948:
"Shertok held the edge of the parchment scroll like a religious Jew holding the
Torah scroll during the reading. He did not let go of the parchment for a single
moment, as a servant of the people…".
T he ceremony of the declaration of the state, conducted in a festive ceremonial
atmosphere, lasted less than an hour. One lone photographer was present to
eternalize the event, and he photographed each and every representative. Along
with representatives of the Hebrew press, there were a few foreign correspondents.
A representative of the New York Times, a veteran, hard-bitten, non-Jewish
journalist, wept…
The hundreds of invitees to the ceremony had received two invitations that
same morning. Special couriers had delivered them personally. The first invitation
had notified them of the event; the second conveyed the time and venue.
S igned and sealed…
A fter the ceremony was over, Shlomo Kedar took the signed parchment , with
the text of the declaration pasted to it, and drove to the Anglo-Palestine Bank
(today, Bank Leumi) on Herzl Street. The document was deposited in a bank safe.
In the following weeks, crammed with the events of the war, the final matters
32 The Friday That Changed Destiny
W allisch decided to forego performing the test there, and tried it out in his
own office instead: he dipped the parchment in water, set a flame to it, and was
eventually convinced that it would do.
W ork continued in the hall of the museum throughout the night, concluding
on Friday at noon. Meanwhile, Wallisch borrowed the portrait of Herzl from
Keren HaYesod, ordered that the frame be repaired, got hold of two national
flags, and sent them for super-quick laundering.
H-Hour: the parchment is left blank
Throughout Friday, a committee of the People's Administration sat in the hall
of the JNF, working on the wording of the Declaration of Independence. Hours
passed, and the final version was not yet ready. During the last hour before the
ceremony, the committee was still sitting on the top floor while Wallisch was
pacing about with the parchment, his eyes on the clock. At the very last moment,
at H-Hour, the wording of the declaration was completed, typed on a typewriter.
There was no time for anything but to paste the sheet of paper onto the
parchment, and the representatives of the State Council signed directly on the
parchment, while Moshe Shertok held it steady. Davar reported, on May 16, 1948:
"Shertok held the edge of the parchment scroll like a religious Jew holding the
Torah scroll during the reading. He did not let go of the parchment for a single
moment, as a servant of the people…".
T he ceremony of the declaration of the state, conducted in a festive ceremonial
atmosphere, lasted less than an hour. One lone photographer was present to
eternalize the event, and he photographed each and every representative. Along
with representatives of the Hebrew press, there were a few foreign correspondents.
A representative of the New York Times, a veteran, hard-bitten, non-Jewish
journalist, wept…
The hundreds of invitees to the ceremony had received two invitations that
same morning. Special couriers had delivered them personally. The first invitation
had notified them of the event; the second conveyed the time and venue.
S igned and sealed…
A fter the ceremony was over, Shlomo Kedar took the signed parchment , with
the text of the declaration pasted to it, and drove to the Anglo-Palestine Bank
(today, Bank Leumi) on Herzl Street. The document was deposited in a bank safe.
In the following weeks, crammed with the events of the war, the final matters
32 The Friday That Changed Destiny
