This is a photo of the front page of the Ma'ariv newspaper, which appeared on the day of the declaration of the State of Israel, May 14, 1948. The main headline reads: “The Mandate is dead! Long live our country.”
Under the headlines, there are reports of the departure of the British commissioner, the establishment of the government of Israel, and the beginning of the tenure of the chief of the Hebrew police. However, while the main headlines are mostly positive, some of those lower down the page feature more serious news such as descriptions of the various battles of the War of Independence, including the road to Jerusalem, Gush Etzion, Kfar Sava, and more. The reaction of the Arab countries is also described on this page.
The photo on the front cover is the image of the last high commissioner, Alan Cunningham; the caricature is the unmistakeable head of Ben-Gurion.
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Ma'ariv - Ma’ariv was founded in 1948 under the name Yediot Ma’ariv, by a number of journalists and editors who had left Yediot Ahronot following a conflict with its publisher, Yehudah Mozes. The paper declared that it would be owned by its workers and independent of both wealthy backers and political parties. The establishment of Ma’ariv (the Hebrew word for evening) caused a rapid decline in the number of readers of Yediot Ahronot as the new publication started publishing as many as 30,000 copies a day. A court order forced the paper to change its name from Yediot Maariv (which suggested it was a successor to Yediot Aharonot) to Ma’ariv.
