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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.

January 11: The three-millionth citizen of Israel arrives - Nathan Zirolnikov, an immigrant from the Soviet Union.

April: Jewish immigration from the Soviet Union increases.

June 21 : The Agreement for the Reconstruction of the Jewish Agency is ratified at the Founding Assembly of the Reconstituted Jewish Agency in Jerusalem.
Half of its governing bodies represent the World Zionist Organization and half represent major Jewish fund-raising (United Jewish Appeal and Keren Hayesod) and other organizations. The Jewish Agency controls immigration, land settlement and social services in Israel, and the WZO concentrates on ideological and youth activities and Jewish education in the Diaspora. Max Fisher of the U.S. is elected chairman if the board of governors and Louis Pincus of Israel, chairman of the executive. The principle of a 50:50 representation on the governing bodies is again adopted. A ratio of 3:2 regarding the proportion of members from the USA and from the other countries on the governing bodies of the Jewish Agency is laid down. The constitution of the Jewish Agency is called "Agreement on the Reconstitution of the Jewish Agency" since it is the outcome of protracted negotiations between both partners rather than a one-sided enactment. The supreme organ of the Jewish Agency, the Assembly is composed of 296 members, 148 of whom are designated by the WZO, 89 by the Board of Trustees of the United Jewish Appeal in the USA, and 59 represented countries other than the USA and Israel.

In 1971 the Soviet Union allows 12,819 Jews to leave. Of these, all but 58 go to Israel. A new, and unexpected source of Jewish immigration has begun. Immigration from behind the Iron Curtain exceeds, by far, from any other single country.

Perez (Fritz) Bernstein (1890-1971), General Zionist leader, chairman of the Union of General Zionists and member of the Jewish Agency Executive (1946-48), dies.

The initiative to establish a fund based in Israel for the advancement of Jewish education in the Diaspora develops in Jerusalem, through the joint efforts of Louis A. Pincus (then Chairman of the World Zionist Organization/Jewish Agency For Israel), Max M. Fisher (then Chairman of the JAFI Board of Governors), and Moshe Krone (then head of the Jewish Agency Department of Torah Education).

New immigrants in 1971: 41,930.

January 4: The first Israeli civilian settlement is founded in Pithat Rafiah, in the northern Sinai.

January 14-15: An IDF unit attacks two terrorist bases deep in Lebanese territory.

February 4: Anwar al-Sadat calls for Israel's withdrawal from the eastern bank of the Suez Canal as a first stage in an overall retreat to the borders of June 4, 1967. He announces his willingness to open the canal to Israeli navigation if Israel agrees to a partial withdrawal.

February 5: The truce at the Suez Canal is approaching its expiry. Egypt is prepared to extend it by a month.

February 11 : UN mediator Gunnar Jarring presents Egypt and Israel with a memorandum calling for Israel's withdrawal from the Sinai contingent on security arrangements in the Sinai and provisions for Israeli maritime rights in the Suez Canal and Straits of Tiran. Israeli and Egyptian conditions for the acceptance of the proposal end in a suspension of the Jarring talks.

March 16: U.S. Secretary of State William Rogers announces that his country supports an Israeli withdrawal to the pre-1967 boundaries. In exchange, the U.S. guarantees Israel's security.

March: Between June 1967 and March 1971, 120 Israeli civilians and 190 soldiers are killed by Palestinian terrorists inside Israel.

April 5: Minister of Defense Moshe Dayan announces at the Labor Party Convention that Israel will not return to the pre-1967 borders even if this leads to war.

April 18: The Mimouna Festival, part of the Moroccan Jewish tradition, is celebrated officially in Jerusalem for the first time.

April 19: The Tel Aviv Museum is inaugurated.

May: U.S. Secretary of State William Rogers visits Egypt and Israel to explore an interim settlement proposal. His efforts fail.

May 18: The Black Panthers, young activists of oriental origin from depressed neighborhoods, organize demonstrations in Jerusalem. Their banners read: "When will Abutbul be treated like a Feigan?" (Abutbul = Moroccan; Feigan = Russian) Three fire bombs are thrown. The police arrest dozens of demonstrators.

June 2: The first El Al Jumbo Jet is delivered to Israel.

July 7: A Katyusha barrage targeting Petah Tikvah, deep in Israeli territory, results in the death of three woman and one child.

July 8: An Israel Air Force helicopter explodes over the sea off el-Arish, killing all ten on board.

August: Syria severs diplomatic relations with Jordan, ostensibly to demonstrate solidarity with the Palestinian struggle, but some observers suspect the motive is to prevent Palestinians fleeing from Jordan from entering Syria. The PLO, ejected from Jordan, moves its camps to southern Lebanon. Soon the PLO presence reaches the whole country via the refugee camps, including the three main refugee camps in the capital Beirut, Bourj El-Barajneh, Tel-El-Zaater, Sabra and Shatilla.

September: There is a brief engagement in the air over the Suez Canal, which is the only outbreak of the year, as Egypt and Israel observe the cease-fire.

September 25 : The UN Security Council adopts a resolution deploring Israel's failure to adhere to previous UN resolutions regarding the status of Jerusalem. The U.S. votes for the resolution, but UN Ambassador George Bush reaffirms the U.S. position that the ultimate status of Jerusalem be determined by negotiations between Israel and Jordan in the context of a peace settlement and that the U.S. does not advocate the return to an artificially divided city and favors a unified city with free access to all.

December: Prime Minister Golda Meir visits Washington. The U.S. agrees to its first long-term arms assistance program. Aircraft will be supplied to Israel over a three-year period.

December: During the year, Jordan's King Hussein and Israel normalize relations de facto. There are few border incidents, and the bridges across the Jordan River carry a steady flow of goods and Arab visitors in both directions. A disagreement on territorial demands prevent progress toward a peace treaty.

Hebrew University professor Benjamin Mazar announces the discovery of a large parapet stone at Jerusalem's Temple Mount, the first to bear a Hebrew inscription, and reading "belonging to the trumpet-blowing place." The stone and inscription confirm a statement by Josephus in his "The Jewish War" that a trumpet was sounded by a priest atop the Temple Wall every Shabbat to signal the approach and close of the holy day.

Amos Elon, Israeli journalist and author, writes "The Israelis: Founders and Sons", an account of generational change in Israel.

February: A World Conference on Soviet Jewry, attended by 800 delegates from 38 countries, meets in Brussels, Belgium. It proclaims the Brussels Declaration, which is a commitment to escalate the protest movement in support of Soviet Jewry. Jewish activists from the Soviet Union express their solidarity.

March: An International Consultation on Soviet Jewry is held in London as a follow-up to the Brussels Conference. It notes the "more realistic" emerging Soviet emigration policy and cautions that those being allowed to leave "represent only a fraction of number who have applied to emigrate."

In New York, the decision of Mayor John V. Lindsay and other city officials to build three 24-story low-income apartment houses in white, heavily Jewish middle-class Forest Hills, Queens, contributes to the growing tension between the city's black and Jewish communities.

The Spanish government completes the restoration of Toledo's famed El Transito synagogue to what it looked like in the 14th century.

Marcel Ophül's film "The Sorrow and the Pity", a documentary on the attitude of the French population under the Nazi occupation, is shown throughout France.

The "Encyclopedia Judaica" is published in Berlin and Jerusalem. Begun in pre-Hitler Germany, it was continued in the U.S. and completed in Israel.

Sanford "Sandy" Koufax, left-handed pitcher of the Los Angeles Dodgers, is elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame. In 1959, he struck out 18 batters in a nine-inning game to equal a major league record. He was the first pitcher to average more than one strikeout an inning during his career. He led the Dodgers to two World Series championships, winning two games each in the 1963 and 1965 Series. He never played on Rosh HaShana and Yom Kippur.

The New York Historical Society exhibits City of Promise, featuring aspects of Jewish life in New York from 1654 to 1970. It is sponsored by the Central Synagogue on the occasion of its 100th anniversary.

Simon Kuznets, U.S. economist, is awarded the Nobel Prize in economics.

Dennis Gabor, British physicist, is awarded the Nobel Prize in physics for his development of holography.