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Chairman of the Jewish Agency Executive: Berl Locker.

Chairman of the Executive of the World Zionist Organization - Jewish Agency, American Section: Nahum Goldmann .

Treasurer of the Jewish Agency: Giora Josephtal.

Chairman Youth Aliyah Department: Moshe Kol.

Chairman Settlement Department: Levi Eshkol.

Chairman of the Immigration Department: Shlomo Zalman Shragai.

Chairman Absorption Department: Giora Josephtal.

The Jewish Agency sends an emissary to Ethiopia to set up a school for Ethiopian Jewish children in Asmara.

Immigration remains at a low ebb. Only 18.000 newcomers arrive in 1954. Most new immigrants are housed in development towns immediately upon arrival.

The details of the status of the World Zionist Organization - Jewish Agency are provided by a covenant.

David Horowitz, director of the Economics Department of the Jewish Agency, is appointed first Governor of the Bank of Israel. He will hold this post until 1971.

January 23: The Soviet Union vetoes a western proposal in the UN Security Council calling for a compromise between Syria and Israel in the dispute over the Jordan River waters diversion.

January 26: The new government is presented to the Knesset.

January 28: Israel submits a complaint to the UN Security Council over the Egyptian ban on Israeli navigation through the Suez Canal.

February 16: Israel abolishes capital punishment for murder.

March 17 : Eleven Israelis are killed in an Arab ambush of a civilian bus in the Negev.

March 19: Passage Through the Suez Canal and the Straits of Tiran, New Zealand Draft Resolution.

March 23: Israel resigns from the joint Armistice Commission with Jordan following the refusal by the UN-appointed American chairman of the commission to censure the murders perpetrated on 17 March.

March 28 : Israeli forces attack the Jordanian village of Nahalin, killing nine Jordanian military personnel and wounding 19.

March 29 : The Soviet Union casts its veto when it blocks a resolution calling on Egypt to permit Israeli-bound shipping through the Suez Canal.

April 1: The National Insurance Institute begins operations.

April 6: The remains of Baron Edmond de Rothschild and his wife Adelaide are reinterred in a state ceremony near Zikhron Yaakov.

May: Romanian immigrants begin a five-day hunger strike to protest antisemitic trials in Romania. The Knesset passes a vote of formal protest.

June 10: David Ben Gurion addresses an audience of 8.000 young people in an improvised stadium at Sheik Munis in northern Tel Aviv, calling on them to commit themselves to a pioneering lifestyle: "Career or Mission."

June 19 : Jordanians kill three members of Kibbutz Meovot Betar.

June 29-30 : Following the murder of an elderly farmer in Raanana, a small unit of paratroopers mounts a raid on a Jordanian Legion camp. One of the Israelis, Yitzhak Jibil, is wounded and evacuated by his comrades but later left behind at his own demand because of the danger to the unit. The Jordanians capture and torture him. His fellow soldiers do everything to rescue him.

June 30 : Three shooting days in Jerusalem begin with three Jews and five Arabs killed and many wounded.

July 1: Two Israeli policemen on a vessel in the Sea of Galilee are killed by Syrians, who dispute the right of movement by fishermen and policemen granted by the armistice agreement.

July 2-23 : Israeli agents in Egypt seek to demonstrate the irresponsibility of the Nasser regime by exploding bombs in US and British buildings. The objective is to persuade the British to remain in Egypt. Prime Minister Moshe Sharett and Defense Minister Pinhas Lavon may have been unaware of the operation. Egypt uncovers the plot and the agents are placed on trial.

July 7: US envoy announces that he has obtained agreement by all sides regarding the division of the Jordan River waters. Israel denies that it has made any such commitment.

July 29: A light aircraft clashes into a gathering of the members at a memorial ceremony commemorating a paratrooper at Kibbutz Maagan. 17 people die, dozens are injured.

August 15: Mapam splits. Its Ahdut Haavodah faction establishes a separate party.

August 16: The Knesset passes the Prevention of Infiltration Law.

IDF paratroopers mount several operations to take Jordanian hostages in order to exchange them for the captured Israeli soldier Yitzhak Jibil.

September 28: Egypt seizes the Israeli vessel Bat Galim in the Suez Canal.

September 29: Israel protests to the Security Council on the seizure of the Israeli ship Bat Galim and its confiscation.

The controversial Kasztner-Gruenwald trial in Jerusalem reaches the summation stage.

October 26: Czechoslovakia releases Simon Orenstein. Efforts to obtain a pardon for the other jailed Israeli, Mordechai Oren, fail.

November: Details of Israel's atomic research and that Israel and France have agreed to cooperate in the development of the nuclear energy are made public.

December 1: The Bank of Israel is established.

December 4: UN General Assembly Resolution 818.

December 7: Five IDF soldiers who crossed into Syria near Kibbutz Dan are captured and accused of spying.

December 11: The trial of the 11 members of the espionage network begins in Cairo. (See: July, 2-23). On 21 December, one of the members, Max Bennet, commits suicide in his cell.

December 12: A Syrian plane is forced down over Israeli airspace. Passengers and crew are detained, but released two days later.

December: The French government approves a request for the sale of 12 Ouragon jet fighters to Israel.

December: U. S. diplomats in the Middle East hold a conference in the American embassy in Damascus. They define U. S. policy as (1) complete and strict impartiality between the Arab states and Israel; (2) friendship for all Middle Eastern countries; (3) support of these countries in their efforts to create strong and stable governments; (4) reaffirmation of the Tripartite Declaration of 1950; (5) support of the UN Truce Supervision Organization.

December: Israel captures several Arab saboteurs and marauders who acknowledge they were acting under the direction of the Egyptian military base in Gaza.

"Sacred Service", composed by Darius Milhaud, is premiered in Israel by the Kol Israel Orchestra.

Joseph Baratz (1890-1968), a founder of Kibbutz Degania, writes "A Village by the Jordan. The Story of Degania."

The West German government enacts a restitution law on behalf of individuals oppressed by the Nazis for racial, religious or political reasons, establishing four categories of indemnification: loss of property, freedom, health, and economic realization.

April: Romania tries Lucretiu Patrascanu, a prominent Jewish Communist lawyer who had been minister of justice in the first postwar cabinet, for being an agent of the Gestapo, the prewar Romanian secret police, and the Americans. He is executed. Many other Jews are defendants in "show" trials in 1954.

June: Pierre Mendès-France becomes Premier of France. he introduces a plan for a Western European defense community and promises to grant Tunisia independence.

June: The first large synagogue building in Holland since the end of World War II is dedicated in Rotterdam.

December: Antisemitic purges of Jews from Czech governmental and party positions have continued throughout the year. By the end of 1954, there are no Jews in party or cabinet positions.

Max Born (1882-1970), German born physicist, is awarded the Nobel Prize in physics for his research into quantum mechanics and nuclear physics.