ISRAEL: The Trumpet's Sound

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And David arose, and went with all the people that were with him . . . and brought up the ark of God . . . into the City of David with gladness ... And David danced before the Lord with all his might . . . So David . . . brought up the ark of the Lord with shouting, and with the sound of the trumpet.

—II Samuel: 6

On May 14, 1948, white-haired David Ben-Gurion proclaimed the new state of Israel in Tel Aviv, but when by the ancient spin of the old Judaic calendar the tenth anniversay of that day rolled round last week, Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion, still his people's straight-backed lawgiver at 71, determined that it should be celebrated in Jerusalem. And with soldiers and trumpets and dancing.

Bursting with the pride of nationhood, some 5,000 Israelis kindled the first festive beacon at dusk beside the Judean hilltop grave of Theodor Herzl, founder of Zionism. Then, after a ten-gun salute boomed off Jordan's echoing hills (all heavily reinforced with Arab soldiery), 5,000 crack Israeli warriors took pride of martial place by parading through the City of David with gleaming tanks, guns and armored vehicles, in defiance of the armistice clause that prohibits any large number of troops and weapons within six miles of the Jordanian frontier.

To the thump of five military bands, the army that had fought two wars and waged many a border skirmish wound its way back without incident to the Mediterranean plain. In a ringing, patriarchal oration, B-G reviewed its triumphs: "The state arose not through the decision of the U.N. but through the determined will of the Jewish people and the heroism of its precious sons and daughters."

Then, while the new David went off to bed, 200,000 Israelis—many finding room only after others had keeled over in the sleep of exhaustion—danced the spring night away in the streets of Jerusalem.