A Constitution for Israel: The Design of the Leo Kohn Proposal, 1948

UN General Assembly Resolution 181 declared that the states which will be established in the Land of Israel should accept a constitution. Dr. Leo Kohn was chosen to write the constitution proposal for the Jewish State. The article describes his constitutional project, which was carried out in three stages between the end of 1947 and October 1948. It identifies the sources of his influence in his proposals, names the figures that assisted in writing the proposals, and tries to understand the reasons for the changes made in the three versions of his proposal. It considers the claim that essential changes were due to the fundamental debate concerning the nature of the constitution of the Jewish State: Should it be similar to the constitutions of modern democratic states, or should it express the Jewish tradition and protect the special Jewish character of the state?