JERUSALEM – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat meet face to face for the first time. NEW YORK — The executive committee of the Council of Jewish Federations unanimously votes to form a partnership with the United Jewish Appeal. ZURICH — Switzerland announces that it will move toward lifting its bank secrecy laws, which will allow for inquiries into the whereabouts of Nazi gold and Jewish assets deposited in the country during World War II. JERUSALEM — Israel”s opening of a new entrance to an archaeological tunnel near the Temple Mount triggers violent clashes between Israelis and Palestinians. Dozens are killed and hundreds more wounded. BUDAPEST — The 137-year-old Dohany Street Synagogue, the largest synagogue in Europe, reopens after extensive renovations.
October 1996
WASHINGTON — President Clinton hosts a summit meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat. WASHINGTON – Republican presidential candidate Bob Dole calls for a school prayer amendment to the Constitution in the final presidential debate. NEW YORK — The Jewish National Fund is found innocent of fraud, malfeasance and misappropriation of funds, but a probe reveals that poor accounting procedures misrepresent how much JNF money is actually sent to Israel. JERUSALEM — Israel and the world Jewish community mark the first yahrzeit of slain Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. JERUSALEM — Israel”s High Court of Justice rules that women are entitled to equal worship at the Western Wall, allowing the grass-roots group Women of the Wall to read from the Torah and wear tallitot while praying there.
November 1996 WASHINGTON — President Clinton names Stuart Eizenstat to coordinate a probe into Nazi-Swiss cooperation during World War II. WASHINGTON — Jewish voters overwhelmingly back President Clinton”s re-election to a second term. As there were in the last session, there are 10 Jewish senators in Congress. WASHINGTON — President Clinton names Jordan as a major non- NATO ally of the United States, which entitles it to special consideration for military aid and equipment. CAIRO — Israeli and Arab business leaders meet at the third annual Middle East-North Africa economic summit. KIEV, Ukraine — The Chesed Avot Charity Center, the largest Jewish relief center for Holocaust survivors in the former Soviet Union, opens with proceeds from restituted property in Germany.
December 1996
NEW YORK — The U.N. General Assembly overwhelmingly adopts a resolution in support of the Middle East peace process. WASHINGTON — American Jewish and Israeli officials welcome President Clinton”s new appointees: Madeleine Albright for secretary of state and William Cohen for secretary of defense. LOS ANGELES — The Union of American Hebrew Congregations rejects a resolution that would have rescinded a 23-year-old rabbinic policy against officiating at interfaith weddings. ZURICH — The Swiss National Bank publicly acknowledges that it profited from its dealings with Nazi Germany. NEW YORK — Kofi Annan of Ghana is named secretary-general of the United Nations, replacing Boutros Boutros-Ghali. WASHINGTON — President Clinton says Israeli settlements are “absolutely”” an obstacle to peace.
January 1997
JERUSALEM — Israeli soldier Noam Friedman opens fire in the Hebron market area, wounding seven Palestinians. Friedman said he was compelled to stop the Hebron redeployment. JERUSALEM — Two bombs explode near Tel Aviv”s central bus station, injuring at least 13 people. No one claims responsibility. NEW YORK — The Vaad Harabonim of Queens, a rabbinical organization, issues a resolution banning women”s tefillah groups, resulting in widespread media coverage. JERUSALEM — The Knesset approves the Hebron agreement, transferring most of the West Bank town to the Palestinians while maintaining Israeli control over holy sites and the Jewish enclave. MOSCOW — Natan Sharansky, Israel”s minister of industry and trade, visits Moscow for the first time since he was deported in 1986 in a prisoner exchange. Sharansky had been arrested by the KGB in 1977.
February 1997
WASHINGTON — Research by the Washington Post reveals that Secretary of State Madeleine Albright has Jewish roots. JERUSALEM — Seventy-three Israeli soldiers are killed in Israel”s worst air force disaster, when two army helicopters collide en route to southern Lebanon. ZURICH — The three largest Swiss banks transfer $71 million to establish a humanitarian fund for Holocaust victims. NEW YORK — A federal jury convicts Lemrick Nelson Jr. of violating the civil rights of Yankel Rosenbaum, the Chasidic Jew murdered during the 1991 Crown Heights riots. NEW YORK — An estimated 700 people, overwhelmingly women, convene for the first International Conference on Orthodoxy and Feminism. JERUSALEM — Israeli police question government officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, about allegations of impropriety surrounding the short-lived appointment of Roni Bar-On as attorney general. NEW YORK — A 69-year-old Palestinian man from the Gaza Strip opens fire on the crowded observatory deck of the Empire State Building, killing one person and wounding six others, before taking his own life.
March 1997
JERUSALEM — Israel breaks ground for construction of a Jewish neighborhood at Har Homa in southeastern Jerusalem, despite worldwide opposition to the move. JERUSALEM — Jordan”s King Hussein pays condolence calls to the families of the seven Israeli schoolgirls killed by a Jordanian soldier during a visit to the Israel-Jordan border. JERUSALEM — Three Israelis are killed and dozens more wounded in a Hamas suicide bombing at a Tel Aviv cafe on the eve of Purim. NEW YORK — A little-known group of Orthodox rabbis inflames Jews across the religious spectrum when they declare that Conservative and Reform Judaism are not forms of Judaism. JERUSALEM — An Israeli pullback from rural West Bank is delayed indefinitely after the Palestinian Authority protests the scope of the first redeployment as too small.
April 1997
JERUSALEM — The Knesset gives preliminary approval to legislation that would codify Orthodox authority over conversions performed in Israel. JERUSALEM — Israel”s attorney general decides not to bring charges against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in connection with the Bar-On affair. WASHINGTON — B”nai B”rith headquarters is quarantined with more than 100 employees inside in a daylong ordeal until federal officials determine that a suspicious package is not dangerous. WASHINGTON — Thousands rally on Capitol Hill as part of a lobbying blitz aimed at convincing Congress to restore welfare benefits to legal immigrants. JERUSALEM — Palestinian police help Israel locate the body of Israeli soldier Sharon Edri, seven months after he was kidnapped and murdered by Hamas members. JERUSALEM — Israel drops its request to extradite Hamas leader Mousa Mohammed Abu Marzook from the United States, opening the way for his deportation to Jordan.
May 1997
WASHINGTON — The U.S. government releases a long-awaited report about Swiss wartime financial dealings with the Nazis.
Holocaust survivors could get millions of dollars in restitution for gold looted by the Nazis. NEW YORK — The New York State Court of Appeals rules that the creation of a public school district in the Satmar Chasidic community of Kiryas Joel is unconstitutional. JERUSALEM — Several Palestinians who sold land to Jews are found murdered after Palestinian Justice Minister Freih Abu Medein declares that such sales are punishable by death. JERUSALEM — The Israeli government decides to close Jerusalem”s Bar Ilan Street to traffic during prayer times on the Sabbath and Jewish holidays. WASHINGTON — The United States proposes cutting aid to Israel and Egypt, and shifting the funds to Jordan. JERUSALEM — Israel”s Labor Party endorses the Palestinian right to a state with limited sovereignty.
June 1997
JERUSALEM — Ehud Barak, a former foreign minister and Israel Defense Force chief of staff, is elected head of the Labor Party. JERUSALEM — Hebron erupts in violence several days after the U.S. House of Representatives reaffirms its support for an undivided Jerusalem as Israel”s capital. NEW YORK — A majority of federations ratify the plan for joint operating partnership between the Council of Jewish Federations and the United Jewish Appeal. WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court rules unanimously that terminally ill people do not have a constitutional right to physician- assisted suicide. WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court strikes down the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, a 1993 federal law aimed at curbing governmental interference in religious practices. NEW YORK — The Reform movement”s Central Conference of American Rabbis issues a call for aliyah in a platform linking Reform Judaism and Israel. WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court reverses its 12-year-old ruling banning public school teachers from providing remedial instruction in parochial schools.
July 1997
JERUSALEM — Violent clashes between Palestinian protesters and Israeli soldiers spread throughout Hebron after a Jerusalem woman distributes fliers depicting the prophet Mohammed as a pig stomping on the Koran. BERN — The stewards of Switzerland”s Holocaust Memorial Fund agree to make the first payments to the oldest and neediest survivors in Eastern Europe. ZURICH — Holocaust survivors around the world scan the list of 1,750 names of dormant accounts published by the Swiss Bankers Association. MOSCOW — Russian President Boris Yeltsin vetoes a bill that would have placed restrictions on religious activity in Russia. ROME — An Italian military court gives a reduced sentence to two former Nazis, SS Capt. Erich Priebke receives a five year prison sentence for his role in the 1944 massacre at the Ardeatine Caves near Rome. SS Maj. Karl Hass, who also admitted to taking part in the killings, is freed. NEW YORK — The United Nations General Assembly”s overwhelming passage of a resolution critical of Israeli settlement policy underscores the Jewish state”s increasing isolation as the peace process remains stalled. JERUSALEM — A twin suicide bombing in Jerusalem”s Mahane Yehuda market kills 15 Israelis.
August 1997
LOS ANGELES — Builders for Peace, a Jewish-Arab enterprise founded to boost economic development in Palestinian self-rule areas, shuts down. JERUSALEM — Israel”s High Court of Justice orders the Religious Affairs Ministry to allow a Reform Jewish woman to take her seat on the Netanya religious council. NEW YORK — Police apprehend a terror cell that planned to carry out suicide bomb attacks in New York city subways. JERUSALEM — A government-appointed committee fails to meet its deadline for recommending a resolution of the controversy over recognizing non-Orthodox conversions conducted in Israel. BASEL, Switzerland — Hundreds gather to mark the centennial of the First Zionist Congress, which lay the foundation for the creation of the Jewish state. WASHINGTON — Welfare reform law goes into effect, cutting off many immigrants from benefits such as food stamps.
