The Jewish Agency for Israel Timeline


Year
 
Jewish Agency for Israel
 
Israel
 
Jewish History & Culture
1958            

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Chairman of the Jewish Agency Executive: Zalman Shazar.

Alternate Chairman of the Executive of the WZO - Jewish Agency, American Section: Dr. Emanuel Neumann and Rose L. Halperin.

President of the World Zionist Organization: Nahum Goldmann.

Treasurer of the Jewish Agency: Dov Joseph.

Chairman Youth Aliyah Department: Moshe Kol.

Chairman Settlement Department: Levi Eshkol.

Chairman of the Immigration Department: Shlomo Zalman Shragai.

Chairman Absorption Department: Dov Joseph.

The State of Israel prize for education is awarded to Youth Aliyah.

 

January 2: Poet Nathan Alterman is awarded the Bialik Prize.

January 7: The coalition crisis ends and the new government represents the same coalition.

January 15 : The Supreme Court overturns a 1955 lower court ruling in the Rudolf Kasztner case. Kasztner's name is cleared. The court rules that he had been criminally libeled by Malkiel Gruenwald.

January 29: Chaim Laskow succeeds Moshe Dayan as chief of staff.

January: The Aleppo Codex, the oldest vocalized manuscript of the Hebrew Bible, is brought to Jerusalem, where it can be seen today at the Shrine of the Book.

February 1: Egypt and Syria form the United Arab Republic (U.A.R.).

February 12: The Knesset passes the first basic law, dealing with the composition and power of the Knesset.

February 14: The Jordanian-Iraqi Federation is formed.

February 27: Carl von Horn assumes the office of chief of the UN truce observers in the region.

February 28 - March 1: An Israeli plane carrying weapons for a Latin American country is forced to land in Algeria. The French authorities confiscate the weapons, as they suspect them to be bound for rebels. The plane is sent back to Israel.

March 27: The Knesset passes the Prescription Law.

April 24 : The State of Israel is ten years old.

April 27 : The new Givat Ram campus of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem opens.

May 8: The Chief Rabbinate building, Hechal Shlomo, in Jerusalem is inaugurated.

May 26 : Jordanian forces kill four Israeli policemen and a UN truce supervisor, George A. Flint, in the Scopus area.

July 1: A coalition crisis develops over guidelines laid down by the minister of the interior for the registration of citizens as Jewish. ("Who is a Jew?"). National Religious ministers Yosef Burg and Moshe Shapira resign.

July 14 - 17: Political upheavals in Iraq, Jordan and Lebanon prompt a state of military preparedness in Israel. King Faisal of Iraq is executed in an anti-Western coup. British paratroopers protect King Hussein's regime in Jordan, and American marines land in Lebanon.

July 24: Ezer Weizmann is appointed commander of the air force.

July: The Jewish Theological Seminary of America dedicates a student center in Jerusalem.

August 19: Amos Hakham wins the first International Bible Contest in Jerusalem.

August 21: UN General Assembly Resolution 1237.

August: Soviet newspapers publish a note from the Soviet Union that warns Israel of dangerous consequences it it permits U. S. and British aircraft to fly over its territory to Jordan during the Iraqi revolution.

October 7: Habimah, upon celebration of its 40th anniversary, is officially recognized as the Israel National Theater.

October 7 : The first of two submarines purchased from Great Britain is delivered.

October 14: A cornerstone-laying ceremony for the permanent Knesset building is held in Jerusalem.

October 16: An Israeli military court convicts eight border policemen for the murder of 48 Arabs at Kafr Kassem in October 1956. They receive sentences ranging from 7 to 17 years.

November 17: Statement to the Special Political Committee of the United Nations General Assembly by Ambassador Abba Eban.

December: Syrian forces shell and machine-gun six Israeli settlements along the border and kill a shepherd near Gonen. The firing is repeated on three more days. Israel complains to the UN Security Council.

December 12: UN General Assembly Resolution 1315.

Walter Eitan, Israeli diplomat who headed the 1949 delegations to the Rhodes armistice negotiations and to the Lausanne Conference with the Arab States, writes: "The First Ten Years: Diplomatic History of Israel."

 

May: It is announced that the Pinkas Synagogue in Prague, dating to medieval times, will be restored as a memorial to the Jewish victims of Nazism: the names of 77.297 victims will be inscribed on its walls.

June: The Austrian Parliament passes the War and Persecution Damages Law (Kriegs- und Verfolgungssachschädengesetz), which limits the indemnification of individuals to claimants with incomes less than 2.769 Dollar per year and only for the loss by individuals of household goods, tools, machines, and other possessions indispensable for the exercise of a profession or conduct of a business. The Jewish community expresses its disappointment with the legislation.

"Hasidism and Modern Man", an interpretation of Hasidism by Martin Buber, is edited and translated into English from the German.

Leon Uris, U. S. novelist, writes "Exodus", a best-selling novel that becomes a source of popular knowledge about some of the events surrounding the establishment of the State of Israel.

Leonard Bernstein is appointed music director of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra.

Yitzhak Perlman gains U. S. fame by appearing on Ed Sullivan's TV show.

New York University renames its mathematics institute the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences in honor of Richard Courant.

The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, designed byFrank Lloyd Wright and named after the U. S. industrialist and philanthropist (1861-1949), opens in New York.

Joshua Lederberg, U. S. geneticist, wins the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine for his studies on the organization of genetic material in bacteria.

Boris Pasternak is awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.

British playwright Arnold Wesker writes "Chickensoup with Barley", the first of three plays dealing with working-class Jewish life in England. The others of the Wesker trilogy are: "Roots" (1959) and "I am Talking about Jerusalem" (1960).

The Czech Jewish State Museum publishes a "Catalogue of Paintings of Jewish Children in the Theresienstadt Ghetto."

An exhibition of archaeological discoveries made by the Hebrew University expedition in the biblical city of Hazor opens at the British Museum.

Igor Y. Tamm and Il'ja M. Frank are awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics.

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