Read the excerpt, and then use the drop- down menus to answer the questions.
In what year did Israel declare itself an
independent nation?
What importance does Israel hold for
Jewish people?
The Land of Israel was the birthplace of the Jewish
people. Here their spiritual, religious and political
identity was shaped. Here they first attained to
statehood, created cultural values of national and
universal significance and gave to the world the eternal
Book of Books. After being forcibly exiled from their land,
the people kept faith with it throughout their Dispersion
and never ceased to pray and hope for their return to it
and for the restoration in it of their political freedom.
Impelled by this historic and traditional attachment,
Jews strove in every successive generation to re-establish
themselves in their ancient homeland. In recent decades
they returned in their masses. Pioneers, defiant
returnees, and defenders, they made deserts bloom,
revived the Hebrew language, built villages and towns,
and created a thriving community controlling its own
economy and culture, loving peace but knowing how to
defend itself, bringing the blessings of progress to all the
What recognized the right of Jewish people
to establish themselves in a homeland?