Following the tremendous popularity of the 1948 series, perhaps this is the moment to look at the year after, the first year of the sate. This is also an opportunity to honor the photography and human inspiration of John Philips. All photos in this post are by John Phillips.
Nurses listening to the opening ceremonies of the new Medical School.
Immigrants waiting for the Tel-Aviv Hafa bus.
The Negbah docking at the Haifa Port with a boatload of immigrants.
Eretz Yisroel
Knesset members of the Untied Religious Front.
A labor doctor giving newcomer a check up.
Immigrants using US Army tents as temporary quarters.
Frame maker from Sofia-Bulgaria, sitting outside of his quarters.
Israeli Chief of Staff Yaacov Dori
(L to R) Major Ezra Omer, Lt. Col. Mordechai Maklev, Lt. Col. Shimon Auidar, Yaacov Dori, Col. Chaim Laskoff, Col. Moshe Zadok and Yosef Auidar.
Nathan Friedman Yellin.
Reuven Shiloah of Foreign Offices (L), talking with police director Chizak.
Rabbi Yaacov Unterman and hi wife (L) sitting with Rabbi Yaacov Toeldano at the garden party.
Moshe Dayan.
Golda Myerson (R) sitting at the table with a man smoking a cigarette.
Finance man Eliezer Kaplan (R), getting up from his chair.
Menachem Begin (L), sitting beside Hillel Kook.
Knesset Member Mordecai Bentov
A walk in Jerusalem.
David Ben Gurion speaking at the opening of Isreal's first medical school.
Us Ambassador James G. MacDonald (L) and David Ben Gurion, attending the opening of Israel's first medical school.
Dep't of Information's Greshon Agron, looking up at opening ceremonies of Israel's first Med School.
(L to R) Mrs. Rose L. Halprin, James G. MacDonald, David Ben Gurion and Rabbi Ben-Zion Uziel.
Pres. of Israel Chaim Weizman (2L), standing at Lydda Airport, holding his grandson's hand after trip to US.
Students researching and studying in the library.
Ex-soldiers loading the hay into bails.
A man leading the way for his herd of sheep.
People walking by and through the ice cream parlor.
Menachem Begin.
Israeli Chief of Operations Yigal Yadin, sitting at his desk.
Dr. Leon Haskelberg, working on a vacuum distillation.
A Bocher
Workers laying water pipeline for irrigating.
David Ben Gurion
Photos licensed for personal non-commercial use only by LIFE.
{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
Thank you so much for posting these compelling, inspiring and historically significant photographs depicting a momentous turning point in the Israeli saga.
The photo that you have listed as Rabbi Herzog is not him. It’s Rabbi Unterman.
Actually both Rabbis were misidentified. I though is was a mistake originally. Now corrected.
The caption on the photo of Knesset members reads “Untied (sic) Religious Front”.
Is this a Freudian slip?
Can you please let me know if I can get the photographs of my father General Yaccov Dori that
you have posted on http://benatlas.com/2010/04/life-in-israel-in-1949-by-john-phillips/.
I will appriciate it very much since we are now in the process of writing the biography of my father who past away in 1973.
I wish you a very happy new year and I thank you very much in advance.
Sincerely,
Prof. Zvi Dori
Prof. Dori, could you please email me (contact tab above). By the way these are the only two photos of your father in the archive (published here).
Shanah Tovah to you and your family.
Thank you for such a wonderful and historical collection!
Guy, thanks goes to John Phillips.