|
top
|
|
Chairman
of the Jewish Agency.
Louis A. Pincus.
Alternate
Chairman of the Executive of the WZO - Jewish Agency, American
Section: Charlotte Jacobson.
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
18: The 28th
Zionist Congress opens in Jerusalem.
During
the year, the Soviet Union permits 34, 733 Jews to emigrate.
Newcomers include released Prisoners of Zion.
Immigration
to Israel rises steadily in the wake of the Six Day War. The
newcomers arrive from the East and the West, but mostly from
the Soviet Union, at first by the thousands and then, from the
early 1970s more massively. Approximately 56,000 immigrants
arrive in 1972, the largest annual figure between 1963 and 1990.
The
immigration from the Soviet Union was viewed as a miracle, both
because of Soviet efforts to block it or to slow it down, and
because decades of official suppression of every manifestation
of Judaism was thought to have resulted in the extinguishing
of Jewish, and certainly Zionist, identity. The Six Day War,
however, revived this consciousness. Israel welcomed this development,
yet was also somewhat overwhelmed by the arrival of the rising
tide of immigrants. Some Israelis resented the preferential
treatment accorded to the newcomers, who were granted housing
on special terms and tax-free purchase of cars. Problems of
absorption and employment also arose, such as the difficulty
of integrating over 3,000 physicians and an even larger number
of engineers who arrived from the Soviet Union during the 1970s.
The
office of the Department for Immigration and Absorption of Immigrants
in Vienna expands its activities because this city becomes a
point of transit and transfer of scores of thousands of immigrants
to Israel from the Soviet Union and other communist countries.
Amigour,
a subsidiary company of the Jewish Agency is founded by the
Jewish Appeal for the purpose of providing housing solutions.
At the time of its establishment, Amigour places about 10,000
apartments at the disposal of distressed families which are
living in huts, tents and temporary accommodation.
The
Institute for Leadership Training is set up for training a select
cadre of personnel ot help organize Jewish communities and to
increase the effectiveness of fundraising activities.
|
|
January
1:
David
Elazar succeeds Chaim
Bar-Lev as chief of staff. Bar-Lev will be appointed minister
of trade and industry on March 6.
January
18: A cable car is installed on Mount Hermon.
January:
Israel cancels the sale by the Assumptionist Fathers of the
Notre Dame de France convent in Jerusalem to Hadassah after
protests from the Vatican.
January:
U.S. officials reveal the signing of a U.S.-Israel arms agreement
in November 1971, authorizing Israel to manufacture various
kinds of American weapons and equipment.
January:
The borders heat up again. Confrontations with Palestinian terrorists
occur in the Jordan Valley and the Lebanese border. Katyusha
missile attacks target Kiryat Shmonah and the northern settlements.
The Israeli air force attacks terrorist targets in Syria.
February
2: Israel agrees to close proximity talks with Egypt
with U.S. mediation.
February
3: Construction of the town of Ofira is begun at Sharm
el-Sheikh.
February
6: The Golden Globe is awarded to Ephraim
Kishon's film "Azoulai the Policeman."
February:
France agrees to reimburse Israel for 50 Mirage jets purchased
but embargoed since the Six Day War.
February:
Israeli forces attack terrorist bases in southern Lebanon's
Fatahland after three persons were killed and seven injured
in terrorist strikes. The UN Security Council adopts a resolution
calling on Israel to stop military action on Lebanon. The U.S.
abstains after its effort to insert into the resolution a sentence
deploring "all actions which have resulted in the loss
of innocent lives" is defeated.
March
1: The Israel Air Force attacks terrorist bases in
Syria. The Syrians bomb settlements in the Golan Heights.
March
15: King Hussein of Jordan unveils a federal plan
for a United Arab Kingdom.
March
16: Israel responses
to King Hussein's federal plan.
March
22: Israel approaches the 5th anniversary of the occupation
of the West Bank. Inside Israel there is a realization that
some kind of compromise is needed. Walter Eytan , Israel's former
Ambassador to Paris writes in the Jerusalem Post. Read
more.
March
30 : Uganda leader Idi Amin breaks off diplomatic relations
with Israel. Israel maintains that Uganda sacrificed good relations
with Israel to obtain financial assistance from Arab countries.
April:
Reports state that Israel will be supplied with Hercules planes
and Patton tanks by the U.S.
May
1: Sadat, at a May 1st ceremony in Alexandria, declares
that Egypt is prepared to sacrifice a million soldiers in order
to liberate the occupied territories and to put an end to "Israeli
arrogance" dating back to 1948.
May
9 : Israeli paratroopers recover a Belgian Sabena airplane
that was forced to land at Lod airport by Black September terrorists.
The hijackers demand the release of hundreds of imprisoned terrorists
in exchange for the passengers.
May
22-26: US President Richard Nixon and Soviet leader
Leonid Brezhnev meet in Moscow.
May
30 : On behalf of the Popular Front for the Liberation
of Palestine, three Japanese terrorists massacre 23 passengers
at Lod airport, among them Christian pilgrims from Puerto Rico
and world-renowed scientist Aharon
Katzir of the Weizmann Institute of Science. The UN Security
Council fails to adopt a resolution condemning the act.
May:
Prime Minister Golda
Meir pays an official visit to Romania, the first by an
Israeli prime minister to a Communist country.
June:
Yitzhak
Rabin, Israel's ambassador to the U.S. publicly notes that
President Nixon has been more supportive of Israel than any
previous U.S. president. Rabin is accused of interfering in
U.S. domestic politics during the presidential campaign.
July
11: A bomb laid at Tel Aviv's central bus station wounds
11 persons.
July
17: The surviving Japanese terrorist who took part
in the massacre at Lod airport, Kozo Okamoto, is sentenced to
life imprisonment.
July
18: Sadat expels Soviet military advisers from Egypt.
July
23: The government decides against the return of the
dispossessed Israeli Arabs to their villages, Ikrit and Bir'am
in the Galilee.
July
26: Israel links up with international satellite communications
upon the inauguration of its satellite ground station in the
Elah Valley.
July:
At a press conference held in Kuwait, U.S. Secretary of State
William Rogers recommends direct negotiations between Israel
and the Arab States.
August
9: The Israeli Air Force bombs 11 terrorist bases in
Lebanon.
August
16: A booby-trapped record player explodes aboard an
El Al flight en route from Rome to Israel. The pilot manages
to land the plane safely in Rome. The record player had been
given to two British passengers by Arab terrorists before takeoff.
September
5: Eight Black September Palestinian kill two and seize
and hold hostage nine Israeli Olympic athletes at the Olympic
Village in Munich, West Germany.
September
6: A shoot-out at Munich airport with German police,
who are attempting to free the hostages, results in the death
of all the Israelis, five terrorists, and one policeman. The
remaining three terrorists are taken prisoner. The games are
postponed for 34 hours. The UN Security Council takes no action.
September
9 : Israeli war planes attack Arab terrorist bases
in Syria and Lebanon in retaliation for the Munich Olympic massacre.
Three Syrian jets are shot down over the Golan Heights. The
UN Security Council adopts a resolution calling for an end of
military operations by "the parties concerned." A
U.S. resolution deploring the München massacre is not considered.
September
16 : Israeli forces cross into Lebanon, search 16 villages,
destroy about 150 fortifications and buildings used by Arab
terrorists, kill about 60 terrorists and take prisoners. The
Lebanese army intervenes and suffers 60 casualties.
September
19: Agricultural Attache to the Israel embassy in London
Dr. Ami Shahori is killed by a letter bomb. Similar devices
are received in the mail by Israeli legations in other European
cities.
September:
The Supreme Court rejects the appeal of Meyer Lansky, U. S.
underworld figure, to override the refusal of the Interior Ministry
to grant him an immigration visa. The court says he was "a
person with a criminal past likely to endanger public welfare."
Lansky return to the U.S.
October
15: Rabbis Shlomo
Goren and Ovadia
Yosef are elected Ashkenazi and Sephardi chief rabbis respectively.
October:
West Germany releases three Arab terrorists held for the massacre
of Israelis at the München Olympic Games as ransom for
a German airliner hijacked over Cyprus by two Black September
terrorists on a flight from Beirut, Lebanon.
November:
Syrian and Israeli forces engage in air, artillery and tank
battles on the Golan Heights. Six Syrian MiGs are downed, with
no Israeli losses.
December
16 : The UN General Assembly, by a vote of 86 to 7,
with 31 abstentions and 8 absent, adopts a resolution
calling "upon all States not to recognize any such changes
and measures carried out by Israel in the occupied Arab territories"
and invites them to avoid actions, including aid, that would
constitute recognition of the occupation. The U.S. abstains.
December
21: Ezer Weizmann resigns as chairman of the Herut
movement executive committee.
December:
During the year, the Suez Canal and Jordan River cease-fire
lines are almost complete quiet. There is no interim arrangement
for the opening of the Suez Canal, but the open bridges policy
in the Jordan River continues, with regular traffic of people
and goods between the West Bank and the East Bank, which many
regard as an interim de facto settlement with Jordan.
"My
Michael", a novel by Amos
Oz, is the first Israeli fiction to appear in an English
translation. |
|
March:
The Dutch Parliament votes not to release three Nazi war criminals
serving life sentences since their conviction in 1948 of deporting
thousands of Jews to the death camps. Parliament overrules the
recommendation of Dutch minister of justice after a mass protest
by Jewish and non-Jewish groups.
April:
National Solidarity Day for Soviet Jewry is observed in more
than 100 American cities. Over 1 million sign petitions urging
President Richard
Nixon to make emigration of Soviet Jews a priority agenda
item in his forthcoming summit meeting with Soviet leaders.
August:
The Soviet government issues a "diploma tax" decree,
requiring would-be emigrants who had acquired a higher education
to pay a large fee, which in effect would make it prohibitive
for educated Jews to emigrate. American Jews launch a campaign
of protest.
September:
Several days after the München massacre, the Israel
Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Zubin Mehta, performs
before an audience of 4,000 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The
audience stands in silence to the memory of the victims.
September:
The PLO representative in Paris, Mahmoud Hamchari, is wounded
and later dies from an explosion set off when he lifts his telephone
receiver. Police experts attribute his assassination to Israeli
agents.
Moises
Cohen is appointed minister of finance in the Uruguayan government
of President Juan Bordaberry. he is the first Jew in the country's
history to become a minister.
Dr.
Augusto Segre, head of the culture department of the Union of
Italian Jewish Communities, conducts a lecture course at the
Pontifical Lateran University on postbiblical Judaism as a continuation
and evolution of classical Judaism. Segre is the first Jew invited
to occupy a chair at the university.
Newspapers
report that Klaus Barbie, Nazi war criminal, is living in Peru.
He return to Bolivia under pressure from the Peruvian authorities.
Mark
Spitz, U.S. champion swimmer from California, competing
at the München Olympic Games, becomes the first person
to win seven Olympic gold medals.
Kenneth
Joseph Arrow, U.S. economist is awarded the Nobel Prize
in Economics.
William
Howard Stein, U.S. biochemist, is awarded the Nobel Prize
in Chemistry for research in proteins, peptides, and amino acids.
Leon
Cooper is awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics.
Christian
B. Anfinsen is awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for
his work on ribonuclease, especially concerning the connection
between the amino acid sequence and the biologically active
confirmation.
Gerald
Maurice Edelman, U.S. immunologist, is awarded the Nobel
Prize in physiology or medicine. He established chemical structure
of gamma globulin, which defends the body against foreign bodies
and disease.
Art
Spiegelman, U.S. cartoonist, creates "Maus",
a cartoon strip, which is a moving and horrifying tale of the
Holocaust around the metaphor of the Nazis cast as cats and
the Jews as mice. |