The Knesset in 10 Minutes

In the heart of Jerusalem, the Israeli Knesset stands as the living embodiment of Jewish self-rule restored after two millennia, a 120-member parliament whose very name recalls the ancient Great Assembly and whose chamber has echoed with the voices of survivors, pioneers, and statesmen since its first session in 1949. From the drafting of foundational laws in a fledgling state under siege to the stormy coalitions, peace accords, and security debates of later decades, it remains both the raucous marketplace of Israeli democracy and the institutional heart of a people who, after centuries of exile, once again govern themselves in their ancestral land.