A dominant event in the concluding months of the year 1983 was the election in Israel of Chaim Herzog to succeed Yitzhak Navon as the sixth president of the Jewish State. Rabbis Avraham Shapiro and Mordechai Eliahu were elected to become Israel’s Askenazic and Sephardic chief rabbis, respectively. The Knesset rejected efforts to emend the Law of Return with the controversial “Who is a Jew” amendment. And the government finally formulated proposals to balance the national budget.
INSIDE ISRAEL:
JANUARY 1983– El Al, Israel’s national airline, which has been grounded since September and placed in the hands of a temporary receiver pending a decision on whether to liquidate it or reorganize it on a more efficient basis, is revived, beginning passenger service to Nairobi and Johannesburg.
A Jerusalem District Court upholds the conviction of Samuel Flatto-Sharon and orders the former independent MK to report to police on March 1 to begin serving a nine-month prison term for bribery and other violations of the law in his election campaign for the Knesset in 1977.
A survey published by the National Insurance Institute says that more than 300,000 Israelis live below the poverty line which is defined by a monthly income of 16,000 Shekels for a family of four.
The Israeli press in nominated for the Golden Pen Award by Finnish and Scandinavian journalists of the International Association of Publishers, sponsors of the award, for its coverage of the war in Lebanon.
FEBRUARY — A Jerusalem Post public opinion poll shows an increase in the number of Israelis ready to exchange occupied territories for peace. A poll conducted also by the Post shows strong bi-partisan opposition to Israeli arms sales to countries governed by dictatorships.
The Israel Philharmonic leaves for Japan for the first visit there in 23 years to give nine concerts under the baton of its musical director, the noted Indian conductor. Zubin Mehta.
MARCH — Maj. Gen. Yehoshua Saguy resigns as chief of military intelligence, and Brig. Gen. Amos Yaron is stripped of his command, both a result of the findings of the Israeli commission of inquiry into the Beirut refugee camps massacre.
Rabbis Avraham Shapiro and Mordechai Eliahu win substantial victories in chief rabbinate elections to become Israel’s Askenazic and Sephardic chief rabbis, respectively.
Chaim Herzog, the Labor Alignment candidate, is elected Israel’s sixth President by secret ballot in the Knesset, providing a stunning political set-back for Premier Menachem Begin’s coalition government. Herzog succeeds President Yitzhak Navon.
The Cabinet accepts the appointment of Deputy Chief of Staff, Maj. Gen. Moshe Levy, as the new Chief of Staff to replace Gen. Rafael Eitan when he retires in April.
A bill to amend the Law of Return to recognize converts to Judaism only those persons converted according to halacha, is defeated by a vote of 58-50 in the Knesset when the Liberal Party faction of the coalition joins the Labor Alignment to oppose the bill.
APRIL — More than 3500 athletes from 30 countries participate in the 12th Hapoel Games, one of the largest sports gatherings ever to be staged in Israel.
In the biggest heist in Jerusalem’s and possibly Israel’s history, $5 million worth of rare and precious clocks and watches are stolen from L. A. Mayer Memorial institute for Islamic Art in West Jerusalem’s residential area of Katamon.
A public opinion poll conducted by the Modi’in Ezrachi Institute and published in Maariv shows a steady increase in the percentage of Israelis who oppose any territorial concessions on the West Bank.
Israel marks the 35th anniversary of the independence of the Jewish State.
MAY — The Israel Bat Dor Company has a highly successful series of sold out performances in Kenya, despite efforts by the PLO and their supporters to have its tour banned.
The prototype of Israel’s new Lavie fighter plane should be flying by 1986, according to Moshe Arens.
Two Knesset committees demand the right to see the Karp report submitted to the government more than a year ago by a special panel that investigated Jewish vigilantism on the West Bank.
JUNE — One of the most crippling public service walkouts in Israel’s 35 year history comes to an end as government employed doctors halt a four-month strike in exchange for an agreement by the government to accept binding arbitration of their grievances.
Deputy Premier Simcha Erlich, one of the founders of the Likud coalition and a leader of the Liberal Party, dies at Bikur Holim Hospital, five days after suffering a stroke. He was 67.
An opposition motion to investigate the government’s conduct into the war in Lebanon is rejected by the Knesset in a 56-50 vote.
The Satmar Rebbe, Rabbi Moishe Teitelbaum, arrives in Israel on his first visit since becoming head of the Hasidic movement and is greeted in Jerusalem by 20,000 of his followers.
The controversial proposal imposing an 0.3 percent tax on all bank withdrawals, designed to finance the continued presence of the Israel army in Lebanon, is killed by its promoter, Finance Minister Yoram Aridor.
JULY — The Knesset votes 62-50 to approve the appointment to the Cabinet of Liberal-Likud MK Sarah Doron as Minister-Without-Portfolio, making her the first woman in the all-male Cabinets presided over by Begin since Likud was first elected to office in 1977.
Shlomo Argov, Israel’s Ambassador to Britain, whose attempted assassination on June 3, 1982 triggered the invasion of Lebanon, bitterly condemns the war as unjustified and brands the war policy as one of “adventurism.”
Controversy envelops the Knesset following the sudden and unexpected introduction and passage of a controversial archaeological bill at a midnight vote that is designed to curb excavations by archaeologists because of the possible presence of Jewish graves.
Tensions between Orthodox Jews and Arabs in Hebron heighten when 19-year-old yeshiva student Aharon Gross is fatally stabbed in the Hebron market place by Arab assailants, and members of the Jewish township of Kiryat Arba retaliate by burning Arab property in the city’s central market.
Two weeks later, masked gunmen open fire with automatic weapons and toss a grenade into a crowd of students on the campus of the Islamic College in Hebron, killing three Arab students and wounding 33 others.
INSIDE ISRAEL:
AUGUST — Ovadia Soffer, the Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, is appointed as the new Israeli Ambassador to France, replacing Meir Rosenne.
Avraham Ahituv, the former head of the Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security service, writes in Davar that West Bank settlements are a “psychological hotbed for the growth of Jewish terror” and that settlers sometimes take the law into their own hands because they feel they have the Likud government’s support. A West Bank Gush Emunim leader denounces Ahituv’s article as a danger to national security.
The Supreme Court sentences the former Minister of Labor, Social Welfare and Absorption, Aharon Abu Hatzeira, to three months in prison in connection with a lower court conviction that found him guilty of fraud, theft and breach of the public trust.
The government makes public a list of new economic measures to balance the national budget, of which two of the major decisions are to cut back on the government financing of political parties and reverse an earlier decision to designate the October 25 municipal elections a national vacation day. Most of the proposals, however, are still subject to approval by either the Knesset Finance Committee or the full Knesset.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
