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Chairman
of the Jewish Agency Executive: Moshe
Sharett.
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: Louis
Arie Pincus.
Chairman
of the Immigration Department: Shlomo Zalman Shragai.
Chairman
Absorption Department: Aharon Zisling.
Chairman
Settlement Department: Levi
Eshkol.
Chairman
Youth Aliyah Department: Moshe
Kol.
New
immigrants in 1962: 61,328.
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February
6: Marc Chagall's stained glass windows "The
Twelve Tribes of Israel" are installed in the synagogue
of the Hadassah Medical Center in Ein Kerem, Jerusalem. Charles
Marc, a master French vitrage artisan assists in the installation
of the windows.
February
9: The government adopts a new economic policy involving
a major devaluation of the Israeli pound. Demonstrations are
held protesting the attendant price rises and the linkage of
mortgages to the dollar.
February
20: The Knesset rejects a proposal to abolish military
rule in the Arab sector.
March
16 : Israeli troops attack Syrian positions in the
demilitarized zone north of the Arab village of Nuqeib after
several weeks of rifle and machine-gun firing from Syrian posts
at Israeli fishermen in the Sea of Galilee and workers along
the border.
April
9: The UN Security Council adopts Resolution
171, sponsored by the U. S. and Great Britain, declaring
the March 16 Israeli raid to be a violation of a 1956 Security
Council resolution condemning armistice breaches by Israel even
in retaliation for attacks. The Knesset rejects the resolution.
May
6: President Leon M'ba of Gabun visits Israel. In the
next weeks the presidents of the Central African Republic, Liberia,
and the Ivory Coast will follow suit.
May
9: During the Independence Day parade rain drenches
thousands of participants and hundreds of thousands of spectators.
May
29 : The Supreme Court dismisses Adolf
Eichmann's appeal of his conviction. President Yitzhak
Ben Zvi rejects his plea for clemency.
May
31: Adolf Eichmann is hanged in Ramleh prison. His
remains are cremated and his ashes are scattered over the Mediterranean
Sea.
June:
U. S. President John
F. Kennedy backs Israel's contention that it could unilaterally
implement its part of the Johnston Plan for allocation of the
Jordan River waters, in the face of persistent Arab opposition.
July
1 : Israel expels Dr. Robert Soblen, who jumped bail
after being sentenced to life imprisonment in the U. S. for
espionage on behalf of the Soviet Union and entered Israel under
an assumed name. In response to the criticism of the expulsion,
Prime Minister David Ben Gurion declares: "We are thinking
of a refuge for Jews who do not wish or are unable to remain
where they are, not of an asylum for criminals."
July
3 : Ten-year-old Yossele Shumacher, missing for 2 1/2
years, is returned to his parents after being found in New York
by Israeli agents. He had been left in the care of his Orthodox
grandfather while his parents were settling in Israel. The grandfather
was concerned that the boy would not be given an Orthodox education
and refused to return him to his parents. Yossele was found
in the Brooklyn home of a follower of the Satmar rebbe.
July:
21-year-old Mexican tenor Plácido
Domingo is given a contract to sing with the Hebrew National
Opera in Tel Aviv. He will stay for three years. Domingo arrives
with his wife, singer Marta Ornelas. His first role is that
of Rodolfo in "La Bohème"; Marta's debut is
as Micaela in "Carmen". In his Israeli years, Domingo
sings ten different operas. He also learns Hebrew. A high point
is his performance in Bizet's "Pearl Fishers" in Jerusalem.
August
20: Israel combat planes down to Syrian Migs in an
aerial skirmish northeast of the Sea of Galilee.
September
27 : In the first U. S. agreement to supply arms to
Israel, the Kennedy administration sells Israel Hawk ground-to-air
defensive missiles. The U. S. is attempting to rectify a Middle
East arms imbalance caused by the flow of Soviet arms to Egypt.
Israel becomes the first non-NATO nation to receive Hawks.
November:
Israel joins 66 other nations in the UN General Assembly and
votes for an Afro-Asian resolution that includes a demand for
sanctions against South Africa.
November
21 : The new town of Arad,
in the Negev, overlooking the Dead Sea, is inaugurated. Its
population of 25.000 is to be employed at the Dead Sea potash
works and in new industries utilizing the area's natural resources.
December:
Joseph Johnson's mission to resolve the Palestinian refugee
problem fails. In 1961, President John F. Kennedy had arranged
for the appointment of Joseph Johnson as a UN official to make
proposals for the repatriation of refugees to Israel. His proposals
are rejected by Israel and neighboring Arab states.
December:
President John
F. Kennedy meets with Foreign Minister Golda
Meir at Palm Beach, Florida, and describes the U. S. policy
of combing close ties with Israel with initiatives toward the
Arab world: "I think it is quite clear that in case of
any invasion, the U. S. would come to the support of Israel."
December:
Syria continues to attack Israeli settlements and farmers in
the north.
December
20: UN General Assembly Resolution
1856.
December
28 : Prime Minister Ben Gurion approaches President
Tito
of Yugoslavia in the hope of enlisting Tito's support as a mediator
between Israel and the Arab neighbors. In a letter he sets out
his hopes that it might be possible for Egypt and Israel to
be brought together in negotiations.
Leisure
develops in Israel. For those attending Saturday evening entertainment
events midnight trains are provided between Tel Aviv and Haifa.
After a while the arrangement stops.
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April:
Pope John
XXIII issues an encyclical, Peace
on Earth, declaring that every human being has the right
to honor God according to the dictates of his or her own conscience.
At the same time, he appoints Augustin
Cardinal Bea president of the Secretariat for the Promotion
if Christian Unity to propose to the forthcoming Ecumenical
Council measures to improve relations between the Catholic church
and other religions.
June:
The most serious of numerous antisemitic attacks in Argentina,
which are intensified after Adolf Eichmann's execution, occurs,
when a university student is kidnapped, driven to an isolated
place, and swastikas are carved on her body. In protest, the
Jewish community organizes a 12-hour communal work stoppage,
which is joined by many non-Jews. Closed store windows bear
the sign: "Closed as a protest against Nazi aggression
in Argentina."
September:
A new synagogue is dedicated in Leghorn,
Italy, to replace the famous synagogue destroyed in World War
II.
October:
By the fall, after the establishment of the independent Algerian
state, the mass movement of Algerian Jews to France together
with the previous influx of Tunisian and some Moroccan Jews,
raises the French Jewish population to an estimated 500.000.
The French Jewish
community becomes the largest in Western Europe and the
world's fourth largest.
October:
An estimated 10.000 Jews attend Yom Kippur services at Moscow's
Central Synagogue. Large attendances are reported at services
in Leningrad, Kiev, and other Russian cities.
Bob
Dylan (born 1941), U. S. singer and songwriter, releases
his first album, "Bob
Dylan". Dylan will spark the emerging of American folk,
rock and country music. His songs call attention to social issues.
Frank
Loesser writes the music and Abe
Burrows the libretto for the Pulitzer Prize-winning musical
comedy "How
to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying."
Max
Ferdinand Perutz, British biochemist, is awarded the Nobel
Prize in chemistry for research into the structure of globular
proteins. He had left Austria for England when the Nazis assumed
power.
Lev
Davidovich Landau, Russian physicist, is awarded the Nobel
Prize in physics for his pioneering theories of condensed matter,
especially liquid helium. He had been imprisoned from 1937 to
1939 during Stalin's purge, although he had already won three
Stalin Prizes for his work in theoretical physics.
Giorgio
Bassani, Italian Jewish author, writes "The
Garden of the Finzi-Continis", a novel of the author's
youth in Ferrara, where an aristocratic Jewish family is unable
to face the social upheaval brought about by Fascism and World
War II. |