The Resurrection of Israel 1948

Description

Open Edition Reproduction

The fig tree is a symbol of Israel, used by Jesus when talking about the signs of the end of the age: “Now learn a parable from the fig-tree. When her branch is now become tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that the summer is nigh. So also, ye, when ye see all these things, know that it is nigh, even at the doors.” (Matthew 24:32-35)

So the new nation of Israel is here represented by the young fig tree miraculously planted by the hands of God among the broken, barren ruins of the land he had returned to them. God, using Gentile (non-Jew) nations, as the tool, was responsible for disbandment of the nation of Israel, then of Judea, and the exile of the Israelites and Jews from their native land as punishment for turning away from Him, and He alone was now responsible for their return and the establishment of a united Israel in their Promised Land. The light at the point of planting represents God’s miraculous power in bringing this about.

The country had been left deserted and desolate by Rome, its trees and crops uprooted and cut down, and the land sown with salt nearly 2,000 years earlier; the majority of its Jewish population killed, enslaved or dispersed throughout the world. This is represented by the tumbled stone ruins and the dead and uprooted fig tree in the foreground. The ultimate insult was to name the territory as Palestine, after the historical enemies of the Jews, the Philistines.

On May 14, 1948, when David Ben Gurion read the Israeli Declaration of Independence in Tel Aviv, no flag for the new state had yet been adopted, however Zionist banners hung from the ceiling on both sides of the podium, and they were almost identical to the national Israeli flag later adopted. The blue stripes on the national flag of Israel symbolize the stripes on a tallit, the traditional Jewish prayer shawl. The portrayal of the Star of David is a widely acknowledged traditional non-religious symbol of the Jewish people.

The dark clouds represent the forces of hatred and evil that have endeavoured to destroy Israel and all trace of the Jews for all time; as had shortly before been manifested so horribly by the Nazi extermination of the Jews in Europe during World War II, and which were immediately unleashed again by the military coalition of Arab states in the First Arab-Israeli War in 1948, known by Israel as the War of Independence. These forces still threaten Israel today.