Israeli Independence Day (Yom HaAtzmaut) 2038

The dates

Yom HaAtzmaut is Israel's national day, marking the Declaration of Independence read out in Tel Aviv on 5 Iyar 5708, 14 May 1948. It is the only day in the Israeli calendar established by law as a civil day of rest, on no religious grounds, and it begins the instant Memorial Day ends, with the torch-lighting ceremony at Mount Herzl. The following day the country looks entirely different: flags on balconies, parks full of barbecue smoke, an air force flypast along the coast, and the international Bible Quiz and the Israel Prize ceremony on television.

The date and the law

The British Mandate for Palestine was due to expire at midnight between 14 and 15 May 1948. The declaration was set for the afternoon of that Friday, partly so the ceremony would finish before the Sabbath began. On that same day, 5 Iyar 5708, the state came into being.

Within a year the Knesset passed the Independence Day Law, whose section 1(a) reads as a proclamation in its own right: “the Knesset hereby proclaims the day of 5 Iyar as Independence Day, to be celebrated year by year as the festival of the state” ¹. Section 1(c) settles the practical question in one line: the day shall be a day of rest.

Like Memorial Day, Independence Day does not always stay on its date. Section 1(b) sets out three shifts: 5 Iyar falling on a Saturday moves back to 3 Iyar, 5 Iyar falling on a Friday moves back to 4 Iyar, and 5 Iyar falling on a Monday moves forward to 6 Iyar ². These match the Memorial Day rules exactly, which is how the two days stay consecutive. In years when 5 Iyar falls on a Wednesday (and it can land on only four weekdays) nothing moves.

What the day looks like

The torch ceremony. In the evening, at Mount Herzl, the ceremony that closes Memorial Day and opens Independence Day takes place. The flag is raised from half-mast to the top of the pole, and twelve torches are lit by people chosen for their contribution to the country, each with the fixed formula “to the glory of the State of Israel”. The number of torches matches the number of the tribes of Israel.

The evening. After the ceremony people go out: concerts in city squares, fireworks, and in some towns a long-standing tradition of plastic hammers and spray foam. This is the loud part of the festival.

The day after. The next morning everything moves outdoors. Parks and nature reserves fill with families and barbecues, the folk custom most identified with the day, and beaches and reserves open free or at a discount. Air force formations fly a fixed route along the coast, and homes and cars are decorated with flags.

Ceremonies and events. The international Bible Quiz for Jewish youth, held in Jerusalem, is broadcast during the day, and the Israel Prize ceremony closes the day's official events.

In synagogue. In the state's early years the Chief Rabbinate ruled that Hallel be recited and a special haftarah read on Independence Day, and a large part of the religious-Zionist public follows that. Elsewhere the practice differs or is not followed at all. The question has never been settled.

Thirty-two minutes at the Tel Aviv Museum

The declaration ceremony itself was short and surprisingly improvised. It was held in a hall of the Tel Aviv Museum on Rothschild Boulevard, chosen partly because it was small and relatively easy to secure, and the location was kept secret until close to the hour for fear of an air raid. Guests received invitations asking them to keep it to themselves.

At four in the afternoon David Ben-Gurion stood and read the scroll aloud. The reading itself took about a quarter of an hour, and the whole ceremony, including the signing by the members of the People's Council and the playing of Hatikvah, lasted some thirty-two minutes. The sentence at its centre is short and flat: “we hereby declare the establishment of a Jewish state in the Land of Israel, to be known as the State of Israel” ³.

A few details of that day survive as anecdotes: some members of the People's Council could not reach Tel Aviv because of the fighting on the road to Jerusalem, and signed the scroll later; and the parchment was still largely blank when it was signed, because the final wording had only been settled hours earlier. The next morning the Arab armies invaded, and the War of Independence ran on for another year.

A festival with no tradition behind it

Yom HaAtzmaut is the youngest day in the Hebrew calendar, and that gives it its particular character: it had to invent its customs in real time. There is no traditional meal, no fixed text read aloud, no agreed symbol. What it does have was assembled over a few decades, mostly from below (the barbecue, the flag in the window, the flypast), alongside an official layer laid down from above: the torches, the Israel Prize, the Bible Quiz.

That tension between the formal and the popular is part of the day. The same twenty-four hours hold a carefully measured state ceremony and a public park full of smoke, and neither feels out of place.

There is also a question sitting in the background since 1948: what exactly is being marked. The Declaration of Independence records the founding of a state, but it is also a document of intentions: equality of rights, freedom of religion, a hand extended in peace. Some years the public conversation on Independence Day is about the celebration, and some years it is about the distance between the declaration and the reality. That, in its own way, has become a tradition too.

Common questions about Yom HaAtzmaut

When is Yom HaAtzmaut?
On 5 Iyar (11/5/38). On the civil calendar that falls in April or May.

Is it always on 5 Iyar?
Not every year. 5 Iyar falling on a Saturday moves back to 3 Iyar, 5 Iyar falling on a Friday moves back to 4 Iyar, and 5 Iyar falling on a Monday moves forward to 6 Iyar. Only when it falls on a Wednesday does it stay put.

When does it begin?
The moment Memorial Day ends, at nightfall. The torch ceremony at Mount Herzl is the point of transition between them.

Is it a public holiday?
Yes, by law. It is a civil day of rest: the economy stops, apart from essential services that the Prime Minister is empowered to keep running.

How long does it last?
One full day, evening to evening. The evening goes to ceremonies and public events, the day after to trips, barbecues and the flypast.

What happens in a year when the date moves?
Memorial Day moves with it. The shifting rules in the two laws are matched, so Independence Day always falls the day after Memorial Day.

Yom HaAtzmaut on the calendar: 5 Iyar and its civil date

The grid at the top of this page shows Independence Day inside the month it falls in, with the Hebrew date and the civil date on every day. You can see at a glance which civil date carries 5 Iyar in the year selected, which weekday it lands on, which in practice decides whether a long weekend forms, and whether this is one of the years in which the day moves back to the 3rd or 4th of Iyar or forward to the 6th. Alongside it the grid shows Memorial Day on the preceding day, and Passover and Shavuot closing the period on either side.
The button above the grid prints it to a single page, portrait or landscape, without the navigation or this text.

• Every festival of the year at a glance: the annual holidays calendar
• The full printable calendar: home page
• The Hebrew month it falls in: Iyar

Related pages

• Printable calendar for May 2038
• The Hebrew month of Iyar 5798
• All the Jewish holidays of 2038
• Printable 2026 Jewish calendar with holidays