This is signed by over fifty Rabbis, plus 21 Rabbis of the Sephardic Congregations, and in addition 10 Rebbes of groups outside of Erez Israel. The first name is R. Yitzhak Yeruchem Diskin, the next is R. Yosef Hayyim Sonnenfeld, et al.

Va'ad Le'umi (Heb. lit.: "National Committee"), the National Council of Jews of Palestine, which functioned from Oct. 10, 1920, until the establishment of the Provisional Government of the State of Israel in May 1948 as the executive organ of the Asefat ha-Nivharim (the Elected Assembly) of the yishuv. Though elected in 1920 by the first Asefat ha-Nivharim and recognized immediately as a representative body in a letter from the high commissioner, Sir Herbert Samuel, the Va'ad Le'umi achieved formal legal status only on Jan. 1, 1928, when Keneset Yisrael, the organizational framework of the yishuv, was legally established under the Religious Communities Organization Ordinance, 1926.

The Va'ad Le'umi elected a smaller body to conduct its day-to-day business and was headed by a chairman, or sometimes by a president assisted by a chairman. It cooperated closely with the Zionist or Jewish Agency Executive, which was responsible for major policy on immigration, settlement, economic development, legal defense, etc. The Va'ad Le'umi represented the yishuv in its relations with the Mandatory government and the Arab leaders and dealt with internal matters (such as the school system) which were delegated to it by the Zionist Executive. It also cooperated closely with the Chief Rabbinate and the local community councils, which were part of the official framework of Keneset Yisrael. The Va'ad Le'umi served as the main organ of the Jews of Palestine before the League of Nations Permanent Mandates Commission and the numerous inquiry commissions into the "Palestine problem," up to the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP), which proposed partition in 1947.

Not all sections of the Jewish population in Palestine were represented in the governing bodies of Keneset Yisrael and, consequently, in the Va'ad Le'umi. Agudat Israel and the ultra-Orthodox circles of the old yishuv boycotted it, and from 1944 the Sephardi list, the Revisionists, the General Zionists, and the Farmers Union were not represented, because of their boycott of the elections to the fourth Asefat ha-Nivharim when their demands for a reform of the electoral system were rejected.

The Va'ad Le'umi was headed from 1920 to 1925 by a presidium consisting of I. Ben-Zvi, J. Thon, and D. Yellin; from 1925 by Yellin as chairman and Ben-Zvi and Thon as deputy chairmen; between 1929 and 1940 P. Rutenberg twice served as president and Ben-Zvi served as chairman; from 1940 to 1944 by Ben-Zvi as chairman; and from 1944 to 1948 by Ben-Zvi as president and D. Remez as chairman.