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Chairman of the Jewish Agency. Louis A. Pincus.

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

Treasurer of the Jewish Agency: Arie Dulzin.

Chairman Settlement Department: Raanan Weitz.

Chairman Youth Aliyah Department:Yosef Klarman.

Chairman Immigration and Absorption: Louis Arie Pincus, Mordechai Kirshblum.

February: The Zionist General Council approves a document entitled "Agreement for the Reconstitution of the Jewish Agency". This agreement is the result of discussions and consultations between the WZO, the United Israel Appeal and the Keren Hayesod. A key figure in these consultations is Counsel Maurice Boukstein, who drafts the Agreement and who can be regarded as the legal and constitutional architect of the Reconstituted Jewish Agency.

August 24: A joint committee of the Zionist Executive and the heads of the Jewish organizations meet to implement the new agreement. The keynote address is delivered by Louis A. Pincus:

"In this equal partnership it will be the imponderable that will again be far more important than the dry bones of the Agreement made between us. We shall met to discuss practical matters within the legal purview of that Agreement. But in these personal contacts, this kind of forum must in its nature spread out, if not formally or legally, to discuss the whole complex of Jewish life, including what we require in order to keep the Jewish people going wherever it may be, how to create and intensify its unity and insure that Israel will be the center of that Jewish life."

To which Max Fisher responds:

"This is a great partnership, a creative partnership, a true alliance of high aims, that has already served notably in advancing the welfare of this land and of those who have come to it. ... It is a firm union of proud Jews the world over who know that great things we have done together in the past and who know too, that we can and will do more. Much more."

August 27: At the close of this historic Planning Committee meeting the Agreement for the Reconstruction of the Jewish Agency is signed in Jerusalem at the official residence of the President of the State of Israel by the distinguished leaders of the WZO, the United Jewish Appeal and the Keren Hayesod.

In 1970 the Soviet Union allows 1,027 Jews to leave.

Moshe (Hayyim) Shapira (1902-1970) - politician and leader of the National Religious Party, dies. He was a member of the Jewish Agency Executive, as head of the Immigration Department, and played an important role in preventing conflicts between the Haganah and Etzel. He was a member of the provisional government, a member of Knesset (1949-1970), Minister of Immigration (1949-50), Health (1949), the Interior (1949-52 and 1959-70), Religious Affairs (1952-58) and Social Welfare (1952-55).

New immigrants in 1970: 36,750.

January 4: Following an Arab summit in Rabat, Abba Eban publishes an appeal for peace between Israel and its Arab neighbors.

January 7: Israeli planes begin attacking targets deep in Egyptian territory.

January 15: Poet Lea Goldberg dies at the age of 59.

January 20-21: An armored IDF unit attacks Palestinian terrorist bases in Jordan southeast of the Dead Sea.

January 22: An IDF unit captures Shadwan Island in the Gulf of Suez. The operation results in a heavy loss of Egyptian lives and over 60 POWs taken by Israel. The IDF loses three soldiers.

January 24: In a tragic accident in Eilat, 18 soldiers are killed and 42 wounded when an ammunition truck explodes in the harbor.

January: Gamal Abdel Nasser secretly travels to Moscow. The Soviets agree to supply Egypt with advanced Soviet anti-aircraft missiles and missile crews to stop Israeli air raid.

January: Defense Minister Moshe Dayan states that Israel will continue to disrupt Egyptian war preparations in reply to the "war of attrition" by continuing air attacks and commando raids on Egyptian military targets.

January: The Supreme Court grants the petition of Major Benjamin Shalit, who is married to a non-Jew, to enter the nationality of his two children as Jews in the ministry of the interior's population register. The decision reopens the "Who is a Jew" controversy.

February 5: Two Israeli navy boats are sunk by Egyptian frogmen in the harbor of Eilat.

February 8: The treasury announces a series of increases in indirect taxation.

February 10 : El Al passengers in board a bus in the Munich airport are attacked by Arab terrorists, with 1 Israeli killed and 11 others injured, including actress Hanna Meron.

February 12 : Egypt charges that an Israeli air attack killed 70 and injured 49 at a factory near Cairo. Israel acknowledges that the pilots mistook the factory for an army camp.

February 17: Nobel Prize winner S. Y. Agnon dies at the age of 82.

March 10: The Knesset adopts a law providing that only persons born of a Jewish mother or converted to Judaism will be registered as Jewish by nationality. The law does not specify that conversion must be according to halakhah, and it is presumed that Reform or Conservative conversions performed abroad will be recognized.

March 28: Poet, translator, and playwright Natan Alterman dies at the age of 60.

April 2: The remodeled Habimah Theater building is inaugurated after a long period of renovation.

April 5: Dr. Nahum Goldmann, president of the Conference of Jewish Organizations, is invited to meet with President Nasser in Cairo. The Israeli government objects.

April 29 : Israeli planes on a mission over Egypt encounter Soviet-piloted aircraft.

April: Egypt charges that an Israeli air attack killed 30 schoolchildren and wounded 36 near Kantara. Israel denies the charge, stating they were attacking a military target, and Egypt refuses access to the site to journalists for over a week.

May: A cultural tempest breaks out when the Cameri theater presents Hanoch Levin's "Queen of the Bathtub", which questions national values, like self-sacrifice for one's homeland. The play is attacked as antipatriotic and closes shortly after its premiere.

May 3: An IDF unit kills 21 Palestinian terrorists who have infiltrated into the Jordan Valley.

May 6: The town of Kiryat Shmonah is targeted in a Katyusha missile attack.

May 12 : Israeli forces cross into Lebanon and destroy Fatah camps in a 39-hour operation. During the first five months of 1970, 140 attacks on Israel are carried out from Lebanese territory. The UN Security Council condemns the Israeli operation, with the U.S. abstaining.

May 18: David Ben Gurion resigns from the Knesset after serving as a member continuously from its inception in 1949.

May 22 : A school bus from the Upper Galilee village of Avivim is hit by bazooka shells fired from Lebanese territory, killing 8 children and 4 adults and injuring 20.

May 30: The situation at the Suez Canal border deteriorates toward the end of the month. An Egyptian attack results in 13 Israeli fatalities, 4 wounded and 2 taken prisoner.

June: Bet Shean, Kiryat Shmonah and Tiberias are attacked by Katyusha missiles and artillery fire. Israel bombs the city of Irbid and Palestinian bases in Jordan.

June 19 : U.S. Secretary of State, William Rogers advises Congress that the Soviet Union is involved in Egypt's air defense, and Soviet Union personnel are stationed in a country outside the Warsaw Pact. Rogers starts a new peace initiative aimed at achieving a new Israeli-Egyptian cease-fire along the Suez Canal and to begin indirect peace talks with UN Special Envoy Gunnar Jarring.
The right-wing members of the National Unity Government, the Gahal bloc, headed by Menachem Begin, reject any proposal that involves even contemplating a withdrawal from the 1967 cease-fire lines.

June: Israeli and Syrian forces commence a battle along the entire cease-fire line in the Golan Heights. This battle lasts several days and is a culmination of several months of sporadic fighting.

July: In a TV interview, President Richard Nixon threatens U.S. action if the Soviet Union upsets the balance of power in the Middle East. He charges that Israel's aggressive neighbors, Syria and Egypt, want to "drive Israel into the sea" and suggests that Israel is entitled to "defensible borders".

July: Sophisticated Soviet missiles along the Suez Canal down four Israeli jets, and five pilots are captured; Israel downs nine MIGs, including four reliably reported to have been flown by Soviet pilots.

July 31: The government votes to accept the American sponsored proposal (Rogers Plan) for a three-month cease-fire based on UN Security Council Resolution 242.

August: Yasser Arafat declares: "Our basic aim is to liberate the land from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River. We are not concerned with what took place in June 1967 or in eliminating the consequences of the June war. The Palestinian revolution basic concern is the uprooting of the Zionist entity from our land and liberating it."

August 7 : As a result of U.S. efforts, and apparent Soviet acquiescence, Egypt and Israel accept a Suez Canal cease-fire and begin diplomatic talks. The Gahal ministers resign from the government. In just over a year, 593 Israeli soldiers and 127 Israeli civilians are killed in the Egyptian bombardments: almost as many as had been killed during the Six Day War.
However, in violation of the military standstill agreement, Egypt immediately deploys a large number of Soviet ground-to-air missiles near the Suez Canal. Israel denounces the violation and refuses to return to talks.

September: Four airliners are attacked by George Habash's Popular Front of the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP):
An attempt to hijack an El Al airliner over England is foiled, and Leila Khaled, one of the terrorists is captured.
A Pan Am 747 is hijacked to Cairo, where it is blown up after evacuation of passengers and crew.
A Swissair airliner and a TWA airliner are flown to Dawson airfield in Jordan and are joined by a BOAC airliner, and they are blown up. More than 300 passengers are exchanged for 7 Arab terrorists. The PFLP attacks arouse universal condemnation and highlight Jordan's King Hussein's inability to control Palestinian terrorists.

September: Black September. King Hussein orders Jordan's army to move against Palestinians threatening his regime. Syria moves 300 tanks into Jordan. President Richard Nixon denounces the Syrian intervention. Israel, encouraged by the U.S. mobilizes and threatens Syria. The PLO flees to the southern region of Lebanon.

September: Syria withdraws from Jordan and the crisis ends with thousands of Palestinian casualties. The PLO charges that there were more casualties inflicted on them by the Jordanians in three days than by the Israelis in two decades of hostilities.

September 24 : Prime Minister Golda Meir flies to the United States. (In Israel it is said that Golda is going to America with her "shopping bag".) She has a private meeting with President Richard Nixon. She advises that Israel will not rejoin peace discussions until the Suez Canal military situation is restored to the pre-cease-fire status. She requests large-scale economic and military assistance not to be contingent on agreement with the details of U.S. peace proposals.

September 28 : Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser dies. He is succeeded by Vice President Anwar al-Sadat.

November 30: A TWA cargo plane and an Israel Air Force transport plane collide on the ground of Lod airport, causing two fatalities and two injured. Both planes go up in flames.

December: Israel announces it will return to Gunnar Jarring's peace talks, which were suspended after the Egyptian violation of the cease-fire agreement.

December : Jordan's King Hussein and Defense Minister Moshe Dayan, on separate visits to Washington, receive assurances of additional military aid. Hussein is reported to have urged the U.S. not to speak of a Palestinian entity, and when asked by the press of his promise to grant Palestinian self-determination, he replies he is confident they will always vote to remain in "the Jordanian family".

December: Inflation in 1970 is 6.1%, the last time a single-digit figure is to be recorded for this index for years to come.

The Israel Institute for Talmudic Publications under the direction of Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz begins publication of a multivolume Hebrew edition of the Babylonian Talmud in which the Hebrew and Aramaic source is printed with vowels and is accompanied by a plain explanation of the text in modern Hebrew, seeking to facilitate the study of Talmud for everyone.

Ceylon, which has maintained diplomatic relations with Israel since 1957, suspends them and closes Israel's legation in Colombo.

The Argentine economy is disrupted and by the collapse of credit cooperatives as a result of mismanagement and embezzlements by managers. Of the 242 cooperatives, 124 are Jewish owned. The Jewish community is harmed as Jewish businessmen are deprived of credit, the cooperatives cease support of Jewish communal, social, and educational institutions, and a negative impression is left on the non-Jewish world.

Franz Stangl, commander of the Sobibor and Treblinka extermination camps who escaped to Brazil after World War II and was caught in 1967 and extradited to Germany, is tried for war crimes by the West German government at Düsseldorf. He is convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment.

Bruno Kreisky, Austrian statesman, is elected prime minister of Austria. He is the first Jew to hold such office.

Hermann Bondi, mathematician, is appointed chief scientist of the British ministry of defense.

February: After the attack of February 10, West Germany's Jewish community centers and synagogues are placed under police protection.

February: The München Jewish community's home for the aged is set afire, and seven occupants lose their lives. The West German government contributes 1 million German Marks toward rebuilding the home.

February 21 : A Swissair plane bound for Tel Aviv explodes within 15 minutes after taking off from Zürich. The 47 passengers and crew are killed. The Palestinian Front for the Liberation of Palestine claims responsibility.

March: The Soviet government organizes a press conference attended by Aron Vergelis, Benjamin Dymshyts, General David Dragunsky, and other Jews affiliated with the government, who state that Soviet Jewry is content and that the discontent among some is caused by "Zionist traitors".

March: The Soviet Union commences an intensive campaign of anti-Israel and anti-Zionist vilification in response to Western and Israeli protests of the treatment of Soviet Jews. The Soviets maintain that Russian Jews have no desire to emigrate to Israel.

July 14: 80 Jews ask the Supreme Soviet to be allowed to immigrate to their "historic homeland".

October: On the Simhat Torah holiday, more than 15,000 Moscow Jews, the largest group ever, congregate in front of the Moscow synagogue, dancing and singing Hebrew and Israeli songs. Similar groups assemble in Leningrad and other cities.

December: Twelve Soviet Jews are tried in Leningrad and convicted of attempting to hijack an airliner at Smolny airport in June and fly to Sweden. Two, Mark Dymshits and Edward Kuznetsov, are sentenced to death. Under pressure from the West, the death sentences are commuted to 15 years' imprisonment.

Leon Uris, U.S. novelist, writes "QB VII".

Saul Bellow, U.S. novelist, wins his third National Book Award for "Mr. Sammler's Planet".

Isaac Bashevis Singer publishes in English translation "Enemies, a Love Story", his first novel in American setting.

Paul Anthony Samuelson, U.S. economist, is awarded the Nobel Prize in economics for his efforts to raise the level of scientific analysis in economic theory.

Sir Bernard Katz, British physiologist, and Julius Axelrod, U.S. scientist, are awarded the Nobel Prize on physiology or medicine for research in the nature of both the nerve impulse and nerve-muscle connections.

A group of works by Mark Rothko (1903-1970), U.S. abstract painter, is permanently installed in the Rothko Room of the Tate Gallery in London.

Otto Klemperer (1885-1973), conductor, becomes an Israeli citizen. He gained fame as a European conductor, especially in Germany.

Yehuda Bauer, Israeli historian, writes "From Diplomacy to Resistance: A history of Jewish Palestine, 1939-1945", describing how the Jews prepared for the postwar struggle that led to statehood. He also writes "Flight and Rescue: Brichah", a history of the illegal immigration of almost 300,000 Holocaust survivors from Europe to Palestine.