The event was attended by over 200 guests, public figures, representatives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and ambassadors from Australia, Uruguay, Ecuador, Belarus, Belgium, Brazil, Guatemala, Denmark, the Netherlands, the Dominican Republic, the Philippines, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, the Czech Republic, France,  Canada, Costa Rica and Russia.

 The monument, designed by the international sculptor Sam Philipe, was placed on a central hill in Netanya and is visible from a distance to travellers on the Haifa-Tel Aviv coastal road from the north and south.

  On November 29, 1947, the United Nations General Assembly voted in favour of ending the British mandate and establishing a Jewish State in the Land of Israel.  33 countries voted in favour of this binding resolution.  The decision recognised the Jewish people’s right to a Jewish State in the Land of Israel and led to the declaration of the State of Israel on May 14, 1948. The strategic  Zionist decisions of that period were made in the building of the National Institutions in Jerusalem

 *Chairman of the World Zionist Organization Ya’akov Hagoel said: “We are marking the 75th anniversary of the historic and significant event on the way to the realisation of the Zionist vision. The recognition of the United Nations of our right to establish the State of Israel. The United Nations on the eve of the establishment of the State of Israel went through many changes and upheavals.  Today, it is far from its neutral position of 1947. On November 29, 75 years later, and despite the validity and historic importance of the decision, the following line that David Ben-Gurion read in the Declaration of Independence resonates: “This is the natural right of the Jewish People to live as a nation,  standing on its own authority in its sovereign state.”

Netanya Mayor Miriam Fierberg – Ikar added: “Today in this ceremony in front of the magnificent Shofar monument, we open again the historical book of memories whose pages are scattered throughout the city of Netanya in monuments, squares, statues, and landmarks and all of them tell the history of the journeys and tribulations of the Jewish People along the way  to the establishment of the State of Israel. This is how we recorded in the book of memories, in a beautiful square in our city, the San Remo Conference, the conference that adopted the “Balfour Declaration” and made the historic decision to establish in the Land of Israel a State for the Jewish People. This is how we wrote into history the winged monument in memory of the “Red Army” liberators of the extermination camps, and so we recorded the history of immigration near the beach in the city as well as other historical events.

Today we mark the 75th anniversary of the UN’s decision that an end must be made to exile and the return of the Jewish People to their homeland.  The shofar standing here in front of us, which is the largest shofar ever made, the creation of the talented international artist Sam Philipe, accurately expresses the meaning of the decision according to the scripture: “Blow a big shofar for our freedom to collect our exiles and let there be a miracle to collect our dispersed.”

The sculptor Sam Philipe remarked: “In the ‘Shmone Esre’ (Eighteenth Prayer) there is the verse ‘Blow a big trumpet for our freedom and let there be a miracle to collect our dispersed.’ This is my inspiration in making the sculpture.”