|
top
|
|
January
18: Louis
A. Pincus is elected chairman of the Jewish Agency.
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.
Chairmen
Absorption Department: Avraham Czygel, Tzivia Lubetkin.
Chairman
Settlement Department: Raanan Weitz.
Immigration
and Absorption Authority: Shlomo Zalman Shragai, Avraham Czygel,
Arie L. Dulzin.
Chairman
Youth Aliyah Department:Yitzhak Artzi.
New
immigrants in 1966: 15,730. This is the lowest figure since
1953.
|
|
January
12: Levi
Eshkol forms a new government. Changes include the cooption
into the coalition with Mapam and the replacement of Foreign
Minister Golda
Meir by Abba
Eban.
January
30: American writer and Nobel Prize winner for literature
John
Steinbeck visits Israel.
January:
King
Hussein of Jordan attacks the PLO for its "treasonable
attempts to undermine Jordanian unity."
February
2: Golda Meir is elected secretary-general of Mapai.
February
23: The left-wing coup in Syria is followed by increased
PLO activity against Israel.
February
28: Tel Aviv restaurateur Abie
Nathan pilots a light plane to Egypt on a one-man mission
for peace. He is thought to be dead but returns the next day.
February:
The U.S. announces it will sell 200 M-48 Patton tanks to Israel
to maintain arms stabilization in the Middle East, as the Soviets
are shipping arms to Egypt and Syria.
March
24: The Educational Television Service begins TV broadcasts.
April
8: A Fatah squad crosses into Israel from Syria and
plants a mine which kills an Israeli farmer.
April
16: The Anti-Defamation
League accuses the Coca-Cola Company of acceding to the
Arab boycott by refusing to grant a franchise to an Israeli
bottler. Coca-Cola denies the charge and enters into an agreement
to establish a bottling plant in Israel. In November, the Arab
League will vote to boycott Coca-Cola.
April
21: Soviet writer Konstantine Simonov visits Israel.
April
26: Ezer
Weizman is named chief of operations at G.H.Q. after serving
as air force commander for eight years. The new air force commander
is Mordechai Hod.
April
29: The IDF raids two villages and two police stations
in Jordan in the wake of Fatah terrorist acts in Israeli territory.
April:
King
Hussein arrests scores of PLO officials on charges of illegal
activities.
May
2 : Former West German chancellor Konrad Adenauer arrives
in Israel. He meets with the political leadership.
May
16: Two Jewish National Fund workers are killed when
their vehicle triggers a mine.
May
18: Prime Minister Levi
Eshkol declares that Israel has no nuclear arms and will
not be the first to introduce them in the Middle East.
May
19: The U.S. announces the shipping of A-4 Skyhawk
jet fighters to Israel.
May:
West Germany grants Israel economic aid in the form of long-terms
loans amounting to 160 million Deutsche Marks. This program
follows the expiration of a 1952 agreement.
June:
Prime Minister Levi
Eshkol leaves for state visits in seven countries in Africa.
President Shazar
visits three states in South America.
June:
King
Hussein publicly denounces PLO leaders and their Arab supporters
for their "subservience to international communism."
July
5 : A monument to President John F. Kennedy is dedicated
in the center of the Kennedy Peace Forest, on the outskirts
of Jerusalem.
July
12-13: More Fatah units cross the border from Syria
and plant four more mines. Two Israelis are killed. This leads
Israel to retaliate by air strikes.
In
summer, a new agreement for 50 Mirage V aircraft is signed with
France.
August
2: President Shazar visits the White House in Washington
at the invitation of President Lyndon
B. Johnson.
August
4: Israel signs an agreement with the American CBS
television company for the planning of a general TV broadcasting
service in Israel.
August
8: A prisoner exchange with Syria takes place. Four
Israelis are returned.
August
15: After another Fatah raid across the border - in
which nobody is killed - Israel attacks Syrian positions from
the air. The Syrians return fire.
August
16: An Iraqi pilot flies his Soviet-built MiG-21 jet
fighter to Israel and asks for asylum. It is assumed that inspection
of the plane is made available to Western powers.
August
30 : The Knesset building is dedicated.
September
6: Another Fatah border crossing. Israel complains
to the United Nations. There is no response.
September
8: An Israeli patrol catches a Fatah unit in the Upper
Galilee. Two Fatah men are killed in the gun battle.
September
9: Three Israeli soldiers are killed when a Fatah-laid
mine detonates in their path.
September
22: The Soviet Union cancels a planned tour of the
Israeli Philharmonic
Orchestra on account of the "anti-Soviet campaign"
taking place in Israel.
October
8: Two more Fatah cross-border attacks are launched.
Three Israeli civilians are hurt by bomb explosions in West
Jerusalem, four more by a mine explosion south of the Sea of
Galilee. The Israeli government submits a protest against Syria
to the UN. It is defeated by a Syrian veto.
October
12: The Soviet Union says that Syria can count on its
support if Israel begins hostilities.
October
13: Three Israeli soldiers are killed in a clash with
a Fatah unit from Jordan.
October
19: A border policeman is killed in an incident in
the Galilee. Three terrorists are killed.
October
27: A freight train triggers a mine on the Jerusalem
line, wounding a railroad worker.
October:
King
Hussein declares that if Israel attacked Syria, Jordan would
open a separate eastern front.
November
8: Prime Minister Levi Eshkol announces in the Knesset
that the reduction of the compulsory military service for men
to 26 months is annulled and will revert back to 30 months.
The military rule in the arab sector of Israel will be abolished.
November
9: Syria and Egypt sign a mutual defense pact.
November
12: A truck containing an Israeli border police patrol
strikes a mine that had been laid on the Israeli side of the
Israel-Jordan border. Three border policemen are killed. A reprisal
action is ordered immediately.
November
13 : An Israeli parachute command crosses the border
into Jordan, evacuates the village of Samou and blows up 40
houses. They destroy trucks carrying Arab Legionnaires. A full-scale
battle ensues, with Jordanian aircraft summoned to help, and
Israeli aircraft being sent up to intercept them. 18 Jordanians
and one Israeli officer are killed.
November
17: UN General Assembly Resolution
2154.
November
25: The UN Security Council censures Israel for the
raid. Israel reiterates its right of self-defense. (Security
Council Resolution 228).
November:
Following the Israeli raid at the village of Samoa, King
Hussein responds to antigovernment demonstrations by ordering
arrest of hundreds of PLO
followers and the seizure of PLO headquarters in Jerusalem.
PLO leader Ahmad Shukairy calls for a holy war against Hussein.
December
10: Shmuel
Yosef Agnon and Nelly
Sachs are awarded the Nobel Prize in literature. (Nelly
Sachs remarks: "Agnon represents the State of Israel. I
represent the tragedy of the Jewish people.")
Gideon
Hausner, the prosecutor for the State of Israel at Adolf Eichmann's
trial, writes "Justice in Jerusalem", a description
of Israel's actions and his view of Eichmann's guilt.
|
|
April:
About 70.000 books in the library of the Jewish Theological
Seminary in New York are destroyed by fire. Many important collections
are lost.
July:
In Britain, 130 members of Parliament sign a petition expressing
their concern over "the continuing difficulties confronting
Jews in the Soviet Union."
October:
After nearly 500 years, Jews return to the Toledo synagogue
for the first Jewish public ceremony since the expulsion. The
ceremony is attended by Spanish government officials as well
as members of the Catholic clergy.
October:
Two members of the Nazi leadership, Baldur
von Schirach, governor of Austria, and Albert
Speer, Hitler's minister of war production, are released
from the Spandau prison in West Berlin. The only remaining prisoner
in Spandau is Rudolf
Hess.
December:
Anti-Jewish bias among the people of France is confirmed by
a poll conducted by the French Institute of Public Opinion.
However, 17% believe that French Jews are not really French,
which compares favorably with 43% who held that view in 1964.
Sir
Isaiah Berlin, English philosopher and political scientist,
is appointed president of the newly created Wolfson College
at Oxford University.
Isaac
Bashevis Singer writes "In My Father's Court",
a memoir of incidents from his childhood in Warsaw, where his
father was a rabbi in a poor quarter of the city.
Elie
Wiesel writes "The Jews of Silence", an eyewitness
report of Jewish persecution in the Soviet Union, which brings
the plight of Soviet Jewry to wider attention.
Dan
Jacobson, British novelist, writes "The Beginners",
a novel set in South Africa, England and Israel.
The
America-Israel Cultural Foundation opens the America-Israel
Culture House in New York, exhibiting Israeli arts and crafts
and holding cultural programs to show the range and achievements
of Israeli artistic activity. The funds makes also considerable
donations to cultural institutions in Israel.
|