top

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.

June 28: The Herut party calls for a vote of non-confidence in the government in light of the implications of the Kasztner trial, namely questions raised about the integrity of former Jewish Agency leaders now in government positions. The General Zionists abstain the vote, engendering a coalition crisis.

August: Immigration from Morocco increases as a result of the struggle for independence there and attendant anti-Jewish incidents.

Ofakim is founded and settled mostly by new immigrants, of whom almost three-quarters are from Morocco and Tunisia. Others come from Egypt, Iran and India.

Twelve Jewish children from Ethiopia are brought to Israel. They are members of the Beta Israel, sometimes called Falasha, community. They are brought to the youth village of Kfar Batya, to learn Hebrew and to be taught trade. Most of them will return to Ethiopia, though a number will stay in Israel.

1955 is an important year in terms of settlement. Kiryat Gat is established in the southern coastal plain. Kiryat Gat is a development town that is in the center of a new concept of regional planning. The ancient site of Lachish gives the name to the Development Region. Within three years Kiryat Gat will have a population of 4,400, almost half of them immigrants from North Africa.

Arab infiltrations result in major indirect economic damage, much of it stemming from the need to pay for large numbers of civilian guards. In the mid-1950s, the Treasury and the Jewish Agency each spend close to 1,5 million lira a year on guards.

January 13: The Israeli complaint on the seizure of the Bat Galim, the arrest of its crew and the confiscation of its cargo are discussed by the Council in January 1955. The discussion is summarized by its President, Sir Leslie Knox Munro of New Zealand.

January 27 : Israeli agents in Egypt are convicted of espionage after a public trial. Harsh sentences are handed down: two are sentenced to death, two to life imprisonment, and the remaining six to long prison terms. Israel's reputation with the Western powers is damaged, and there are widespread repercussions in Israel. Defense Minister Pinhas Lavon denies knowledge of the operation, called "Mishap", and the findings of an inquiry commission appointed by Prime Minister Moshe Sharett are inconclusive.
Shmuel Azar and Dr. Moshe Marzuk are executed on 31 January.

February 13: Four Dead Sea Scrolls (the first Isaiah scroll, the commentary on Habakkuk, the Manual of Discipline and the Genesis Apocryphon) are purchased in New York by Yigael Yadin with the financial help of Samuel Gottesmann and are removed to the Hebrew University. They are purchased from the Syrian Orthodox Metropolitan in Jerusalem.

February 17 : Defense Minister Pinhas Lavon resigns following the uncovering of an Israeli intelligence network in Egypt. David Ben Gurion returns as minister of defense.

February 21: Rabbi Yitzhak Nissim is name Sephardi Chief Rabbi.

February 28 : The Israeli army launches a reprisal attack against Egyptian military headquarters in Gaza. 38 Egyptian soldiers are killed, 24 wounded. The raid is in response to a series of Egyptian provocations. Gamal Abdel Nasser uses the raid as a pretext for a Czech army deal.

March 8: Tel Aviv holds a traditional Purim parade, the Adloyada, for the first time since 1935. More than 500.000 people take part in the celebration.

March 12: UN General Assembly Resolution 916.

March 19: The first feature film about the War of Independence, "Hill 24 Doesn't Answer" has its premiere.

March: Excavations in Massada reveal dramatic findings, including Herod's palace.

March: Egyptians raid the Israeli village of Patish, killing one and wounding 18. Several other raids from Gaza will take place in April and May.

March: The UN Security Council adopts a U. S. - British - French resolution condemning Israel for the February Gaza raid.

April 21: The Bandung Conference of nonaligned Afro-Asian states is held in Indonesia. Israel is not invited. The aim is to create a bloc which will be independent of the Soviet Union and the United States. The meeting between Egyptian president Nasser and future Soviet foreign minister Dmitri Shepilov leads to the shipment of the most modern Russian arms to Egypt.
Israel reacts and turns to France and Britain for help. In May, Shimon Peres will go "to England and France on an arms mission."

April: The first West German ship not carrying reparations goods docks in Israel. The "Arcturus" loads 45.000 tons of citrus fruit for Germany.

April: An agreement between the governments of Israel and Jordan authorizes the District Commander of Jerusalem on both sides of the barbed wire and the concrete divide to discuss and settle questions regarding the maintenance of peace in Jerusalem. The commanders also meet face to face and exchange daily newspapers on an informal basis. Meetings take place at the Mandelbaum Gate, the main crossing point between the Israeli and the Jordanian sectors.

May 28: A bomb explodes in the printing office of the left-wing newspaper Haolam Hazeh, edited by Uri Avneri.

May 29: Burmese Prime Minister U Nu visits Israel.

June 1: Automatic interurban telephone dialing is inaugurated, ending the need for an operator.

June 9-12: Operation Yarkon is carried out, anticipating the Sinai Campaign: six IDF soldiers are landed along the Sinai shore, scout the desert for three days, and are airlifted out in six light planes.

June 22 : The Israeli District Court rules that Rudolf Kasztner had not been criminally libeled by Malkiel Gruenwald, who accused him of collaborating with the Nazis when he was a wartime leader of Hungarian Jewry. The verdict is appealed to Israel's Supreme Court. The trial becomes a campaign issue as Kasztner is a prominent Mapai figure.

July 4: Egypt shells a British ship in the Straits of Tiran.

July 19: The Yarkon-Negev water line is inaugurated.

July 26: Israel holds national elections for the Third Knesset. Mapai drops to 40 seats, the General Zionists to 13. Herut rises from 8 to 15.

July 27: A Bulgarian air force plane shoots down an El Al passenger plane on the way from Vienna to Tel Aviv that strayed over Bulgarian air space in error, killing all aboard.

July: Between July and September, Elmore Jackson, an American Quaker serving at the UN, shuttles three times between Cairo and Jerusalem in an attempt to mediate between Egypt and Israel. Egypt demands repatriation of refugees and ceding of the Negev. Israel offers compensation, some union of families, and limited boundary adjustments with a right of passage through Israeli territory.

August 7: Bar-Ilan University in Ramat Gan, opens. It is supported by the Mizrachi Orthodox movement and it is the first American-sponsored liberal arts university in Israel. It is named after Meir Bar Ilan, leader of religious Zionism and president of the World Mizrachi Center.

August 18: The Arab Higher Committee for Palestine on the Johnston Scheme.

August: U. S. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles proposes a program to end the war between Israel and the Arab states. There should be an agreement on borders; an international guarantee of these borders, sponsored by the UN, with U. S. participation through formal treaty obligations; an international loan, with heavy U. S. participation, to enable Israel to pay compensation to Arab refugees; and U. S. assistance to help create more arable land where the refugees will reside. The speech is a broad outline of Project Alpha.

August: Israeli newspaper editor Chaim Shurer, who spent 40 days in the Soviet Union, reports that at least half the Soviet Jewish population was interested in Jewish communal life but there was none, "no Jewish theater, school, library, bookshop or restaurant."

August: Egyptian fedayeen start a series of attacks against Israeli border settlements and settlements deep in Israeli territory. Israel carries out reprisal raids.

August 30-31: Israeli forces attack and destroy all military installations at the Khan Yunis fedayeen training camp.

August 31: The Bank of Israel issues a new series of currency notes, which carry its name for the first time.

September 1: A battle between an Israeli Ouragan plane and two Egyptian Vampires north of Gaza Strip ends with the downing of the Egyptian planes.

September 19: The development town of Dimona is established to give workers at the nearby potash works at the Dead Sea, and the Oron phosphate field, a healthier place to live.

September 23: Oil is discovered at a drilling site at Heletz in the south, evoking great excitement.

September 27: Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser announces the signing of the army deal with Czechoslovakia. The Soviet Bloc decides to put his full weight behind the Arab states in the Israeli-Arab conflict. In response, Israel turns to the United States, seeking arms and a security agreement.

October 20: Egypt and Syria sign a mutual defense treaty.

October 23 : During a visit of Israeli Prime Minister Moshe Sharett to France, French Prime Minister Pierre Mendès-France announces the shipment of 12 additional Ouragon jet fighters and of 12 new Mystère 4 jet fighters to Israel. The French react to Gamal Abdel Nasser's support of Algerian rebels and to the Czech arms pact with Egypt. The US compels France to delay the shipments of the Mystère jets.

October 30: Moshe Sharett meets John Foster Dulles in Paris to negotiate a security agreement. The US decides not to proceed with the security agreement, not wishing to alienate those Arab states with whom America still hoped to have good relations. Dulles promises Sharett that the U. S. will not abandon Israel.

October 30: An Egyptian army unit crosses the border near Nitzana and penetrates into the Negev.
Israel mounts a retaliatory operation at an Egyptian army base near al-Kuntilla.

October: The Johnston mission fails. The Arab League announces the deferral of acceptance of Johnston's proposal for utilization of Jordan River waters.

October: Gamal Abdel Nasser concludes a mutual defense treaty with Syria.

November 2: The new government is presented. David Ben Gurion is prime minister and minister of defense. Shimon Peres remains director-general of the ministry of defense.

November 2 : Israel attacks the demilitarized zone at El Auja on the Egyptian border, killing 50 and wounding 40 Egyptians, with the loss of four Israelis.

November 9: British Prime Minister Anthony Eden proposes British guarantees for boundaries of a smaller Israeli state.

November 15 : Prime Minister David Ben Gurion, in an address to the Knesset, rejects Project Alpha as an attempt to crush Israel, as it will require Israel to give up the Negev.

November 16: President Eisenhower announces that the United States will safeguard the agreed-upon borders in the Middle East.

November 18: Statement to the Special Political Committee of the United Nations General Assembly by Ambassador Abba Eban.

November 22: Egyptian attacks continue. Israel issues a warning to Egypt.

November 28: Nasser rejects Eden's proposal as well. He demands the implementation of the 1947 partition plan.

December 12: After numerous Syrian attacks against Israeli fishermen, Israel attacks Syrian positions in the northeast corner of the Sea of Galilee, killing 56 Syrians, taking 29 prisoners, with four Israelis killed. The press reports differences between Ben Gurion and Moshe Sharett regarding the operation. Israel is censured internationally.
On 17 December, the U. S. and the Soviet Union censure the operation in the UN Security Council.

December 29 : In a speech to the Supreme Soviet, Prime Minister Nikita Khrushchev condemns Israel as a tool of imperialist states used to threaten its Arab neighbors.

One million dunams of Israeli land are under irrigation.

Israel's first cotton harvest exceeds expectations.

Hersch Lauterpacht (1897-1960), Whewell professor of international law at Cambridge, is appointed a judge of the International Court of Justice at The Hague. He was born in Galicia and educated at Lvov and Vienna before immigrating to Great Britain.

Herman Wouk, U. S. novelist, writes "Marjorie Morningstar", depicting a middle-class American Jewish life in New York and its summer resorts.

Lillian Hellman, U. S. playwright, is associated with the dramatization of "The Diary of Anne Frank". The script is written by Albert and Frances Hackett.

Jonas Salk, U. S. epidemiologist, develops the Salk polio vaccine, the first effective weapon to combat the polio scourge.