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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. Dov Joseph, who was military governor of Jerusalem during the War of Independence writes "The Faithful City", describing the siege of Jerusalem in 1948.

Chairman of the Immigration Department: Shlomo Zalman Shragai.

Chairman Absorption Department: Dov Joseph.

Chairman Settlement Department: Levi Eshkol.

Chairman Youth Aliyah Department: Moshe Kol.

New immigrants in 1960: 24,510.

January: The Constitution of the World Zionist Organization stipulates that national and international Jewish organizations might be admitted as members provided they accepted the Zionist program. Whereas the organizations as such must subscribe to the program, it is not required that each of their members be a Zionist. However, in contradiction to the "non-Zionists" of the Jewish Agency of 1929, these international Jewish bodies are Zionist so that this broadening of the WZO cannot be regarded as a reconstitution of the Jewish Agency.

December 27 : The 25th Zionist Congress opens in Jerusalem. David Ben Gurion addresses the Congress, stating that immigration is the central problem of the State of Israel and that, according to a Talmudic precept, religious Jews remaining in the Diaspora are violating a religious commandment. His speech arouses considerable resentment among the American Jews, Zionist and non-Zionist, who believe Jews could be fully observant in the Diaspora.

January 1: The agorah coin replaces the prutah. The Israeli lira has now 100 agorot instead of 1000 prutot.

January: After the Syrians open fire on Israeli settlements below the Golan Heights, Israel increases the number of its troops in the north.

January 15: The Soviet Union informs Syria that the movement of Israeli troops is part of a plot between "the Imperialists and the Zionists" to initiate an attack unto Syria.

January 19: Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser sends troops and tanks eastward across the Suez Canal.

January 23: Israel sends an aerial reconnaissance mission over the canal, but fail to locate Egyptian units in this area. The main body of the Egyptian army is massed near the Israeli border.

January 24: Israeli tanks are ordered to the south.

No shooting occurs at the border and eventually both forces are withdrawn. The IDF is distressed about the late discovery of the Egyptian troop movements. Israel has to improve its early-warning system.

January 31: An IDF unit attacks Hirbet Taufiq on the Golan Heights. This is Israel's first large-scale retaliatory operation since 1956.

February 17 : The Danish ship "Inge Toft" which had been detained by Egypt in the Suez Canal in May 1959, returns to Haifa, after her Israeli cargo is confiscated.

February: The U. S. Navy announces elimination of the Haifa Clause from its contracts with oil-carrying cargo vessels. This clause, in effect since spring 1958, permitted the navy to cancel a contract with and oil-carrying cargo ship if the Arabs refused to accommodate the vessel. Its effect was to prevent U. S. ship owners doing business with Israel from bidding for the navy's cargo shipping.

March 6 : Prime Minister David Ben Gurion visits the United States, where he has a private visit with President Eisenhower. The Arab states object the meeting.
Prime Minister David Ben Gurion meets West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer in New York. Adenauer promises that financial aid to Israel will continue after the end of Germany's reparations commitment. Germany will also supply arms. The opening of diplomatic relations is delayed. Adenauer fears that if West Germany will recognize Israel, the Arab states will recognize East Germany.
Ben Gurion also meets British Prime Minister Harold MacMillan.

March 8: Industrialist Efraim Ilin announces that his factory in Haifa will assemble American cars for the company Studebaker Lark.

April 3: The United Arab Republic (U. A. R.) threatens to declare war against Israel if it diverts water from the Jordan.

April 13 : The Seafarers International Union and the International Longshoremen's Association begin picketing the Egyptian vessel "Cleopatra" when it docks in New York, declaring that the Arab boycott of U. S. ships trading with Israel threatens job opportunities for U. S. seamen. The court challenges to the picketing are unsuccessful. In May, when the U. S. State Department will issue a statement deploring the Arab boycott and affirm freedom of seas, the picket lines will be lifted.

May 8: An archaeological expedition led by Yigael Yadin discovers in Judean desert caves 14 letters, one on wood and the rest on papyrus, by Simon Bar-Kokhba, leader of the Jewish revolt against the Romans in 132 - 135 CE. Bar Kokhba is called Shimon Ben Kossiba in the letters.

May 8: Gideon Hausner is appointed attorney general.

May 12: The Yossele Shumacher affair makes headlines when the child's ultra-Orthodox grandfather, Nahman Shtarks, is arrested on suspicion of abducting him from his parents.

May 23 : Prime Minister David Ben Gurion announces in the Knesset that Adolf Eichmann, Nazi SS officer, was abducted from Buenos Aires, Argentina, by Israeli agents and flown to Israel to stand trial for crimes against the Jewish people.

June 2: Argentina complains to the UN Security Council, where Israel expresses regret for violation of Argentine law. The United States and the Soviet Union both support Israel.

Prime Minister David Ben Gurion conducts a round of visits in Europe. He meets French President Charles de Gaulle, King Baudouin of Belgium, Queen Juliana of the Netherlands and other prominent statesmen.

June 15: Technion professor Kurt Sita is arrested on suspicion of spying for the Soviet Union.

June 16: Israel's first atomic energy reactor, at Nahal Sorek, becomes operational.

July 6 : The Israeli air force buys its first Fouga Magister jet training plane assembled in Israel under license from a French aircraft manufacturer. All parts of the plane, except the engine and instruments, are of local make.

July 19: The Knesset passes the Basic Law "Israel Lands".

July 28: The World Bank grants Israel a loan of 27,5 million Dollar to build a new deep-water port at Ashdod.

August 25: The Olympic Games in Rome are opened. Israel participates with 23 athletes.

September: Chief of Staff Chaim Laskov appoints an investigative commission (Cohen Commission) to hold an inquiry into whether Pinhas Lavon, then defense minister and now secretary general of the Histadrut, was responsible for the collapse of an Israeli intelligence network in Egypt in 1954. The "Mishap" of 1954 resurfaces and will soon become the Lavon Affair.

September 26: In an address to the UN General Assembly, Egypt's president Nasser states: "The only solution to Palestine is that matters should return to the condition prevailing before the error was committed - i.e., the annulment of Israel's existence."

October 2: The debate over the Lavon Affair intensifies. Ben Gurion adopts a negative stand against Pinhas Lavon.

October 19: An Egyptian Mig 17 overflies the Negev and is brought down by Israeli combat planes.

November 27: Major General Zvi Zur is designated Chief of Staff.

December 17 : The Central Intelligence Agency and the State Department brief the U. S. Senate Joint Committee on Atomic Energy on the Israeli construction in the Negev of a nuclear reactor capable of weapons production.

December 21: The Committee of Seven concludes unanimously that Lavon "did not give the order to the Affair." Prime Minister Ben Gurion is not ready to accept the verdict.

December 25: The government approves the conclusion of the Committee of the Seven. Ben Gurion does not participate in the vote.

In 1960 cracks begin to appear in Mapai. One aspect of the discussion is the growing struggle between the old and the new generation of politicians, the latter represented by Moshe Dayan and Shimon Peres.

Billy Rose (1899-1966), U. S. show business entrepreneur, announces the gift of his million dollar collection of modern sculpture to the Israel National Museum in Jerusalem.

Isaac Bashevis Singer writes "The Magician of Lublin", a novel of early Jewish life in Poland.

Bruno Bettelheim writes "The Informed Heart", a book of essays and reviews that includes criticism of the Jewish masses for failing to revolt against the "final solution".

Frederick Loewe and Alan Jay Lerner write the musical "Camelot", based on the Arthurian legend.

Donald A. Glaser, U. S. physicist, is awarded the Nobel Prize in physics, for his design of the bubble chamber, an indispensable research tool in nuclear physics.

An English version of "Night". a novel in autobiographical mode by Elie Wiesel (born 1928), describes his experiences in Auschwitz. Wiesel wrote the book in Yiddish in 1956 on the suggestion of French Catholic writer François Mauriac. Two succeeding memoir-novels, "Dawn" (1961) and "The Accident" (1962) complete the trilogy.

Harold Pinter (born 1930), British dramatist writes "The Caretaker", a play that establishes his reputation. Its central theme is how to maintain an identity in a world that demands conformity as the price of survival. He will be considered England's foremost postwar playwright.

"Synagoga", an exhibit of Jewish ritual objects, manuscripts, and works of art, is opened in the Recklinghausen Museum by West German President Heinrich Lübke. The exhibit was compiled by Israeli and West German scholars, with many objects lent by European Jewish and Israeli museums.

Mikhail Tal, Soviet chess master, wins the world championship by defeating fellow countryman, Mikhail Botvinnik.

Otto Preminger directs "Exodus", a film based on Leon Uris' novel that is a huge box-office success and lends a sense of grandeur to the experience of the creation of Israel. It stars Paul Newman and Eve Marie Saint.