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May 30: Maronite Patriarch Antoine Pierre Arida and the Jewish Agency conclude a secret treaty. The Maronites recognize the Jews' right to statehood in Palestine, and the Jews affirm the independent, Christian character of Lebanon.

June 29: "Black Saturday". A large-scale operation by the British authorities takes place against the Yishuv leadership and the Haganah. The leading figures in the Jewish Agency are arrested, and 3,000 members of the Haganah. Searches are carried out in the offices of the Jewish Agency, the Labor Federation and in 27 settlements. At Yagur, a large arms cache is discovered. The "important" prisoners and the women are detained at the Latrun camp. More than 2,000 other prisoners are held in the camps at Rafah. "Black Saturday" was the most extensive and violent operation against the Jews of Palestine.

After the arrest of Moshe Shertok, Golda Meyerson is chosen acting head of the Political Department of the Jewish Agency, in which capacity she represents Jewish Palestine in the difficult negotiations with the British. She will serve as de facto head of the Political Department until the establishment of the State of Israel.

July 1: An assembly of Yishuv representatives decides to sever all contacts with the British Mandatory authorities until all detainees are released, all restrictions are lift, and 100.000 immigrants are allowed in.

July 24: The British accuse the Jewish Agency of directing Haganah sabotage activity.

August 5: The Jewish Agency Executive, convening in Paris, decides to call a halt to armed opposition. Moshe Sneh, who has been head of the national headquarters of the Haganah since 1941 resigns in protest.

August 29: The Jewish Agency receives the Egyptian pro-partition of Palestine position.

September 8: Eliyahu Sasson, head of the Arab Department of the Jewish Agency, meets with Arab League General Secretary Abd Al-Rahman Azzamm, who shows interest in dividing Palestine into two states.

November 5: The British release the leaders of the Yishuv who have been imprisoned at Latrun.

December 9-24: The 22nd Zionist Congress is held in Basel. In this congress the Revisionists take part again, after a plebiscite held among their members at the beginning of the year ascertains that 70% are in favor of attending. The Jewish State Party once more becomes a part of the Revisionist movement. The Congress is made up of the following participants:
40% Labor moment, 32% General Zionists, 15% Mizrachi, 11% Revisionists, 1% new immigrants. The Congress demands that a Jewish state be established in Palestine and takes a negative stand on any negotiations with Britain to be held on a different basis (the Morrison-Grady Plan).
Read excerpt from Chaim Weizmann's inaugural address.
On this occasion no new president is voted into office.The Congress rejects Weizmann's program. The elections to the Executive are held on 29 December by the Zionist Executive. The 19 members of the Executive elected are:
David Ben Gurion, Selig Brodetsky, Peretz Bernstein, Rabbi Zeev Gold, Nahum Goldman, Yitzhak Gruenbaum, Chaim Greenberg, Eliahu Dobkin, Rose Halprin, Berl Locker, Golda Meyerson, Emanuel Neumann, Abba Hillel Silver, Moshe Sneh, Rabbi Yehuda Leib Fishman, Eliezer Kaplan, Moshe Shapira, Shlomo Zalman Shragai and Moshe Shertok.
David Ben Gurion is again voted Chairman of the Executive and Abba Hillel Silver the Chairman of the American Branch of the Executive. In the capacity of chairman, Ben Gurion receives a special portfolio: Defense. The following resolution is adopted: "Only the establishment of a Jewish State will fulfill the original aim of the mandate. The Congress opposes any form of trusteeship to replace the mandate. It calls on the United Nations Organization and all its member states to support the demand of the Jewish people for the establishment of their own State in the Land of Israel, and their acceptance into the family of nations."

December: The Zionist leadership makes Ben Gurion responsible for defense in addition to his function in the Jewish Agency.

In 1946, immigration figures total nearly 19,000, among these 10,000 who arrive during the months January to July in the illegal immigrant ships. This number does not include about 11,000 more illegal immigrants who arrive in another 11 ships during the months August to December and are expelled to Cyprus.

In 1946, 26 new settlements are established, 11 of them in the Negev.

Chairman of the Jewish Agency Executive: David Ben Gurion.

Chairman of the Executive of the World Zionist Organization - Jewish Agency, American Section: Dr. Abba Hillel Silver.

Treasurer of the Jewish Agency: Eliezer Kaplan.

Chairman Youth Aliyah Department:Hans Beit and Georg Landauer.

Chairman Settlement Department: Eliezer Kaplan.

Chairman of the Immigration Department: Eliahu Dobkin and Moshe Shapira.

January: The struggle against the British continues.

January 7: The Anglo-American Commission of Inquiry begins its investigations abroad.

February 6: Lehi attacks the British military camp near Holon and takes weapons from it. In response, soldiers run amok in the streets of Holon, shooting in all directions. Three bystanders are killed, many are wounded.

February 18: The British trace a secret Lehi transmitter in Tel Aviv. Among the arrested members is announcer Geula Cohen.

February 22: The left-wing Zionist Youth movement HaShomer HaZair turns into a political party.

Palmach units attack the mobile police bases at Sharona, Kfar Vitkin, Shfaram and Jenin. Three days later Etzel and Lehi attack British airfields at Kastina, Kfar Sirkin and Lod. 25 aircraft are destroyed.

March: Meir Vilner, spokesman for the Communist party in Palestine, expresses the Soviet line that calls for the withdrawal of the British from Palestine and the creation of an Arab-Jewish state. He opposes a partition.

March 6: The Anglo-American Commission of Inquiry arrives in Palestine and begins investigation. Emile Edde, the president of Lebanon from 1936 to 1941, Maronite Patriarch Antoine Pierre Arida, and Ignatius Mubarak, archbishop of Beirut, before the commission. Mubarak is the most outspoken: "If you oppose Zionism in Palestine it means returning the people to the domination of savagery and the country to the state of anarchy and bribery in which it existed under the Ottoman Sultans ... here is a struggle between civilisation and regression, and the Jews represent civilisation."

March 27: The "Wingate Night". This is a mass operation organized by the Haganah in Tel Aviv. The object is to prevent the British from arresting the illegal immigrants who are about to disembark from the vessel "Wingate" which is standing off the coast. But the vessel is seized by the British forces at sea before it can reach Tel Aviv.

April 3: Etzel and Lehi members attack targets along the railroad lines. 31 Etzel members are caught.

April 6: British forces arrest 1,014 Jewish refugees in Italy who are about to board to illegal immigrant ships - the "Eliahu Golomb" and the"Dov Hos". They begin a hunger strike which is joined by Yishuv leaders in Palestine. The hunger strike has repercussions all over the world. Finally the British give permission for the ships to sail for Palestine.

May 1: The findings of the Anglo-American Commission of Inquiry are published.

June 3: The Morrison-Grady Commission discusses the application of the recommendations of the Anglo-American Commission of Inquiry.

June 6: The General Zionist Federation in Palestine emerges from the union of the General Zionist Association and the General Zionist Bund.

June 12: British Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin accuses the U. S. of encouraging Jewish immigration into Palestine: "Because they do not want them in New York."

June 13: Etzel members Yosef Simhon and Michael Ashbel are sentenced to death by the British for their role in an attack on a military base.

June 17: "The Night of the Bridges". The Palmach blows up ten bridges linking Palestine to the neighboring countries. At one place - Gesher Haziv - the men guarding the bridges touch the explosive charge laid by the saboteurs and 14 soldiers are killed. On the following day a Lehi unit attacks the railway workshops at Haifa and sabotages engines and other equipment. While they are making their getaway in a truck they are caught at a British army road block. Ten are killed and 22 are taken prisoner.

Etzel abducts five British officers as hostages for the release of Yosef Simhon and Michael Ashbel. The Hebrew Resistance Movement instructs Etzel to release them. General Evelyn Barker orders "Operation Agatha". More than 100.000 soldiers and policemen surround dozens of Jewish settlements. A curfew is imposed on Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.

July 3: The High Commissioner pardons Ashbel and Simhon. Etzel releases the two remaining hostages.

July 22: Etzel blows up the southern wing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, which houses the central offices of the Mandate government and the British army headquarters. 91 are dead and hundreds wounded. This incident ends the activity of the Hebrew Resistance Movement.

Thousands of British troops place Tel Aviv under a curfew as they search for the King David Hotel attackers. Among those seized is Yitzhak Shamir, the Lehi second command. He is sent to detention in Eritrea. Menachem Begin escapes detention.

July 30: General Evelyn Barker, commander of the British troops in Palestine, issues a directive forbidding British troops from having social or business contacts with Jews, in the wake of the King David Hotel bombing.

The Morrison-Grady Plan is published. It proposes regional autonomy for the Jewish and Arab population, with Britain retaining control over the country.

August 12: The British government announces that illegal immigrants will no longer be allowed to enter Palestine but will be deported to Cyprus and accommodated in camps. The following day the order is put into practice.

October 6: In the greatest settlement campaign so far 11 settlements are established overnight in the night following Yom Kippur, in the south and in the Negev.

Uri Zvi Greenberg publishes a collection of his poems, "Streets of the River", written on the theme of the Holocaust and the Jews' will to survive.

February: Polish antisemites murder four Jews on a train from Lodz to Cracow, where they were to attend a Jewish communal convention.

March: Chaim Hirszman, one of two survivors of the Belzec death camp, is murdered the day he testifies in Lublin of what he witnessed in Belzec.

July: Poles murder 42 Jews in a pogrom at Kielce. It is aroused by rumors of the Jewish abduction of Christian children for ritual purposes.

The Czech government, on the recommendation of Premier Klement Gottwald and Foreign Minister Jan Masaryk, recognizes the Brichah and agrees to aid its activities.

September: The Jewish Historical Commission of Poland excavates Warsaw ghetto documents compiled by Emanuel Ringelblum's Oneg Shabbat group.

October: The International Military Tribunal at Nürnberg renders verdicts. (See: Nazi Germany and World War II in 1945: October.)

Schocken Books, a German book publishing house founded by Salman Schocken, begins publishing books of Jewish interest in the U. S.

Ben Hecht writes "A Flag is Born", a lyrical portrayal with music by Kurt Weill, of the efforts of survivors from Treblinka extermination camp to reach a haven in Palestine in the face of British obstruction.

Meyer Levin, U. S. novelist and journalist, makes the first feature film of the Yishuv in Palestine: "My Father's House".

YIVO (The Institute for Jewish Research) begins publication of the "YIVO Annual of Jewish Social Science" in English.

Irving Berlin writes the music for "Annie get Your Gun".

Herman Joseph Muller (1890-1967), U. S. geneticist, is awarded the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine for his work in producing genetic mutations by using X-rays.

Arthur Koestler writes "Thieves in the Night", a novel describing the Arab-Jewish conflict before the British withdrawal from Palestine.