Great Assembly - Modern Israel

Modern Israel

Upon the founding of the modern State of Israel in 1948, its political leadership was aware Jewish history's once Great Assembly that consisted of 120 members, and thereupon decided to call its newly-established unicameral parliament the Knesset i.e. "Assembly" or "Gathering", which would also consist of 120 elected members as the democratic representatives of the people of modern Israel. However, the original Great Assembly was composed exclusively of the most learned sages of that age, while the modern Knesset is composed mainly of secular Jews.

The same word is also used in the term "Beit Knesset" (בית כנסת), the Hebrew word for a synagogue, and both originally having meant "a place of gathering". However, in modern usage the two terms are completely distinct from each other.

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