Ever mindful of the state of Israel's difficult birth, millions in Israel and around the world are joining in the celebration of its 60th anniversary this week, recalling a time that redrew the map and reshaped countless lives.
Today, stages are set up in cities and towns across the nation of 7.2 million people, and entertainment -- singing and dancing -- is planned. In forests and campgrounds, hundreds of thousands of people will spread out picnics. The Israeli air force will conduct flybys around the country, and many military bases will be open to visitors.
'People seem `up,' '' said Brian Bilzin, one of 120 South Floridians in Israel for the celebration as part of the Greater Miami Jewish Federation's 60th Anniversary mission to the nation.
''There's always worry and tension about what tomorrow will bring, but I'm seeing a great deal of pride,'' said Bilzin, 63, a Miami Beach lawyer who was last in Israel in 2001. ``[Returning] to celebrate the 60th is terrific, given all that [Israel] has been through.''
The group from South Florida left Miami on May 1 and, before returning Friday, will join several anniversary events.
They'll also visit projects and developments the Miami Federation supports, including the new community of Yerucham in the Negev desert.
Many celebratory events are being held Thursday, six days early, because Independence Day on the Hebrew -- lunar -- calendar this year falls on the Sabbath.
FAST GROWTH
At 6 p.m. EST on May 14, 1948 -- midnight in what was then Palestine -- the State of Israel came into being.
Earlier that day, David Ben-Gurion, Israel's first prime minister, read a declaration of independence that explained the United Nations' decision to create the tiny new country as a refuge for survivors of the Nazi Holocaust.
''The catastrophe which recently befell the Jewish people -- the massacre of millions of Jews in Europe -- was another clear demonstration of the urgency of solving the problem of its homelessness by reestablishing in Eretz-Israel the Jewish State, which would open the gates of the homeland wide to every Jew and confer upon the Jewish people the status of a fully-privileged member of the community of nations,'' Ben-Gurion said.
The next day, five Arab nations attacked the fledgling state, which fought for its life until the following spring, when a series of armistices brought an uneasy peace.
Other wars of survival followed, including the Six Day War in 1967 and the Yom Kippur War in 1973. Violent conflict with Palestinians continues in the West Bank and in Gaza.
A year after the Six Day War, Miami lawyer Edith G. Osman made her first trip to Israel. She joined this week's Federation mission for her second trip.
Born the same year as the State, former Florida Bar Association president Osman, 59, is the daughter of Latvian Holocaust survivors.
The day after visiting Yad Vashem, Israel's monument to the Holocaust -- part museum, part archives -- she talked about what a Jewish state meant to her parents.
''We grew up with people with numbers [on their arms],'' she said. 'We had no relatives. People were `family' formed from people they could find. . . . Israel was a place where they could escape to -- a place where the doors wouldn't be closed, where there was no anti-Semitism and pogroms.''
Not everyone on the mission is Jewish. Joe Natoli, the University of Miami's chief financial officer, is Catholic. He toured some of the Christian holy sites with his wife, Jennifer.
''Everywhere we've gone, there are flags hanging, and history is really on people's minds,'' said Natoli, 52. ''It's been wonderful to see [the country] firsthand and to meet people who add context,'' Natoli said during a phone interview.
``As a first-timer, to see what has been accomplished through the will of the people in a short time is impressive.''
But in a related e-mail, he noted: ''On the highway ride from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv, we saw reminders of the War for Independence -- for example, remnants of vehicles from battles'' left for 60 years as monuments.
Developer Tibor Hollo also is on the mission. A Hungarian Holocaust survivor, he first touched Israeli soil in 1947, when it was still Palestine and fewer than 800,000 people lived there. He has returned more than 20 times and marvels at the changes.
''It has grown incredibly,'' said Hollo, 80. ``I have not seen anything like it.''
The ancient Mediterranean port city of Caesarea was nothing but Crusader ruins in 1947; now it's Israel's most upscale community, with the country's only 18-hole golf course.
Most remarkable, said Hollo, is that all this has happened in a sliver of a nation -- 8,400 square miles, slightly smaller than New Jersey -- surrounded by hostile Arab nations.
''Living under the sword, they can build this country as an edifice of the modern world,'' he said. ``The development is wonderful, and I have to endorse it.''
UNDERSTANDING
Maxine E. Schwartz, the mission's co-chair, is a veteran traveler to Israel, and development/outreach director of the University of Miami's Miller Center for Contemporary Judaic Studies.
''You think you've seen it all, yet there is always something new,'' said Schwartz, 69. ``When we started to plan, we knew we'd have to show the problems, but this time we wanted to emphasize the miracles. . .''
Israelis are always on alert, but ''their life goes on,'' Schwartz said. ``You don't see anybody who looks afraid.
``The specific goal of this mission is to bring as many people to Israel as possible, because once you're here, you start to understand what this place is.''
Celebrating 60 years since the creation of the state of Israel
Video | Israel turns 60