The Recording of the Israel Declaration of Independence

The Recording of the Israel Declaration of Independence was a complete recording of the declaration using a direct to disc recording technique on acetate discs using special cutting machines. Neither the original records nor their duplicates were demanded by Israel state authorities and to date they cannot be located, except for one original acetate disc. However, copies of the recording itself survived on different media.

"Tslil - Palestine Electrical Recording Company Ltd." was founded in early 1947 in Tel Aviv and specialized in recording and marketing of commercial records of music of Israel and classical music. "Tslil" records were also played by "Kol Yerushalayim" (The Voice of Jerusalem), the Hebrew station of the Palestine Broadcasting Service of the British Mandate administration.

In April 1948, a few weeks prior to the Declaration of Independence, Lucien Salzman of "Tslil" recorded the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra playing the "Hatikvah" national anthem at the "Ohel Shem" hall in Tel Aviv, a recording that was later used for many years by "Kol Yisrael" (The Voice of Israel), notably as the closing tone of the broadcasts at midnight, as well as by Israel embassies all over the world.

The declaration ceremony was held at the Tel Aviv Museum on Friday, 14 May 1948 at 16:00 and the recording was performed by Lucien Salzman from "Tslil - Israeli Electrical Recording Company Ltd.". The official invitation to perform the recording was issued by Karel Salmon from Kol Yisrael on behalf of Mendel Mahler-Kalkstein, the Secretary-General of the Palestine Philharmonic Orchestra, that was invited to play the Hatikvah national anthem by an undersized ensemble of 30 of its players. Presenting a certificate issued by the provisional government, Minhelet HaAm, Lucien Salzman entered the museum building with two assistants, his nephew Giora Hanoch and Fedor Shanon. They installed the two disc cutting machines and the amplifiers in a small room on the second floor and placed two identical microphones (model Shure 701D) on the presidential table. One of the microphones was wrapped with a white ribbon bearing the Tslil company name in Hebrew (צליל).

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