69 years ago, the State of Israel was declared. For the first time since the arrival of Pompey and the Romans in 63 BC, Jews had sovereignty over their homeland; the Land promised to Abraham Isaac and Jacob, the Land from which they were twice expelled. For Zionists worldwide, it marked the actualization of their hopes and yearnings. It was the fulfillment of a half-century aspirations of Political Zionism conceived by Theodor Herzl in the 1890s, and a major moment in the destiny of Religious Zionism – the millennia-long hope of a spiritual reawakening as foretold in the Torah, perhaps with faint rumblings of the Messianic Era getting underway. What are the origins and tenets of these strands of Zionism? How did they coalesce in the founding of the State? What can the ideaological roots of the State tell us about the current challenges and policy disagreements facing Israel today?

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