5776: A review of the major events in the Jewish world

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JTA – A stabbing and car-ramming epidemic in Israel that some called a third intifada was among the most dominant Jewish stories of the past year. But 5776 was also notable for the release of spy Jonathan Pollard after 30 years in prison, the communal fallout from the Iran nuclear deal, a historic (and unfinished) agreement on egalitarian worship at the Western Wall and continuing clashes between pro-Israel students and the BDS movement on college campuses.

Below is a timeline of the Jewish year’s major events – the good, the bad and, in the case of the deaths of some Jewish giants, the very sad.

September 2015

•             Some 53 major American Jewish groups issue a call for unity and recommitment to American and Israeli security following the Sept. 17 deadline for Congress to reject the Iran nuclear deal. Overall, 19 of 28 Jewish members of Congress support the deal, which is vigorously opposed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.

•             The Reconstructionist Rabbinical College reverses a longstanding ban on accepting rabbinical students with non-Jewish partners. The move proves to be controversial, leading seven rabbis and one Florida synagogue to quit the movement in January in response.

 •            The Palestinian flag is raised at U.N. headquarters in New York for the first time. The move follows a 119-8 vote of the General Assembly on Sept. 10 to allow the flag at the headquarters. Israel and the United States are among the dissenters, along with Canada and Australia.

October 2015

•             The Jewish Council for Public Affairs calls on Jewish groups to lobby for official American recognition of the Armenian genocide. Though most historians say the killing or deportation of 1.5 million Armenians by Turkish forces during World War I constitutes a genocide, many American Jewish groups – including the Anti-Defamation League and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee – had previously declined to do so for fear of harming Israel’s alliance with Turkey. In May, the ADL’s new chief, Jonathan Greenblatt, writes in a blog post that the massacre of Armenians was “unequivocally genocide.”

•             An Israeli couple is killed in the West Bank while driving with four of their six children. Eitam and Naama Henkin, both in their 30s, are killed while returning to their home settlement of Neria. Their children are unharmed. In June, four Palestinians are sentenced to life in prison for the killings.

•             Pope Francis meets Jewish leaders in Rome to mark the 50th anniversary of the Nostra Aetate, the landmark declaration that rejected collective Jewish guilt for the killing of Christ and paved the way for improved Jewish-Catholic relations. In the meeting in St. Peter’s Square, Francis declares: “Yes to the rediscovery of the Jewish roots of Christianity. No to anti-Semitism.”

•             Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu draws fire for claiming the mufti of Jerusalem gave Hitler the idea to exterminate the Jews at a 1941 meeting. “Hitler didn’t want to exterminate the Jews at the time; he wanted to expel the Jews. And Haj Amin al-Husseini went to Hitler and said, ‘If you expel them, they’ll all come here,’ ” Netanyahu said. Amid an outcry, Netanyahu modifies his statement, emphasizing that Hitler bore responsibility for the Holocaust.

•             Palestinian rioters set fire to Joseph’s Tomb, a Jewish holy site in the West Bank, amid continuing Israeli-Palestinian unrest. The violence began in September following an Israeli raid on the Temple Mount that uncovered a cache of weapons, which led to clashes that spread to the West Bank.

•             Portuguese officials approve the naturalization of a Panamanian descendant of Sephardic Jews, the first individual to receive Portuguese citizenship under a 2013 law that entitled such individuals to repatriation. Days earlier, Spain approved the granting of citizenship to 4,302 descendants of Spanish Jews exiled during the Spanish Inquisition

under a similar law.

November 2015

•             Jonathan Pollard, the former American Naval intelligence analyst convicted of spying for Israel, is freed from federal prison after 30 years. Under the terms of his parole, Pollard is prohibited from traveling to Israel, though he offers to renounce his American citizenship in order to live there.

•             New York State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver is found guilty of corruption. An Orthodox Jew who wielded vast power as one of the New York state government’s proverbial “three men in a room,” Silver was convicted of using his position to win millions through various kickback schemes and no-show jobs. In May, Silver is sentenced to 12 years in jail.

•             Two Jewish teens are found guilty of the murder of Mohammad Abu Khdeir, a Palestinian teenager who was abducted and burned to death in the Jerusalem Forest in 2014. The teens are not identified because they were minors at the time of the crime.

•             American yeshiva student Ezra Schwartz, 18, is killed in a shooting in the West Bank. Schwartz, of Sharon, Massachusetts, is memorialized by the New England Patriots, his favorite team, with a moment of silence prior to their Nov. 23 game against the Buffalo Bills.

•             F. Glenn Miller Jr., the white supremacist found guilty of killing three people at two suburban Kansas City Jewish institutions, is sentenced to death. Miller was convicted of capital murder in September.

•             The European Union approves guidelines for the labeling of products from West Bank settlements. Under the guidelines, goods produced in the West Bank, eastern Jerusalem or the Golan Heights must be labeled. Israel’s Foreign Ministry condemns the move.

•             The Anti-Defamation League reports a 30 percent jump in anti-Israel activity on American college campuses. According to the report, over 150 “explicitly anti-Israel programs” have either taken place or are scheduled to take place on American campuses, an increase from 105 the year before.

•             The Rabbinical Council of America adopts a policy prohibiting the ordination or hiring of women rabbis. The policy, the result of a vote of the main Orthodox rabbinical group’s membership, proscribes the usage of any title implying rabbinic status, specifically naming “maharat” – an acronym meaning “female spiritual, legal and Torah leader” used by Yeshivat Maharat, a New York school ordaining Orthodox women as clergy.

•             Six men are sentenced for their roles in a plot to violently coerce a man to grant his wife a religious divorce; most are given prison terms. In December, two rabbis involved in the scheme are sentenced to jail time, including 70-year-old Mendel Epstein, who receives a 10-year term. In all, 10 people, three of them rabbis, are convicted for their roles in kidnapping and torturing recalcitrant husbands for a fee.

December 2015

•             Israel arrests several suspects in connection with a July firebombing in the West Bank town of Duma that killed three members of a Palestinian family, including an 18-month-old baby. The suspects later allege they were tortured by the Israeli security agency Shin Bet, which denies the claim. Weeks later, video emerges showing friends of the suspects celebrating the killings at a wedding in Jerusalem, drawing condemnation from across the political spectrum.

•             The United Nations recognizes Yom Kippur as an official holiday. Starting in 2016, no official meetings will take place on the Jewish Day of Atonement at the international body’s New York headquarters, and Jewish employees there will be able to miss work without using vacation hours. Other religious holidays that enjoy the same status are Christmas, Good Friday, Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha.

•             An Orthodox gay conversion group is ordered by a New Jersey court to cease operations. Jews Offering New Alternatives for Healing, or JONAH, must cease operations within 30 days, the state Superior Court rules. In a lawsuit filed in 2012, the group, which claims to be able to eliminate homosexual urges, was found to be in violation of New Jersey’s Consumer Fraud Act.

•             Violinist Itzhak Perlman is named the third recipient of the Genesis Prize. The annual $1 million prize, dubbed the “Jewish Nobel,” is funded by a group of Russian philanthropists to honor individuals who have achieved international renown in their professional fields and serve as role models through their commitment to Jewish values.

•             Brazil refuses to confirm Dani Dayan, a former West Bank settler leader, as Israeli ambassador to the country because of his support for the settlements. Following a months-long standoff, Dayan, a native of Argentina, is reassigned as consul general in New York.

•             Samuel “Sandy” Berger, who served as President Bill Clinton’s national security adviser, dies at 70, succumbing to cancer. Berger was a prominent player at the 2000 Camp David summit.

January 2016

•             In response to unspecified complaints that products produced in the West Bank are mislabeled as originating in Israel, the U.S. customs agency reiterates its policy that any goods originating in the West Bank or Gaza Strip be labeled as such.

•             After decades of squabbling, the Israeli government approves a compromise to expand the non-Orthodox Jewish prayer section of the Western Wall. Under terms of the deal, the size of the non-Orthodox section of the Western Wall will double to nearly 10,000 square feet and both areas will be accessible by a single entrance.

•             The Brown University chapter of the historically Jewish fraternity Alpha Epsilon Pi separates from the international organization over biases against non-Jewish members as well as its handling of sexual assault. In an op-ed in the Brown student newspaper, chapter president Ben Owens says the group objected to the “demeaning way that some representatives of AEPi National treated our non-Jewish brothers.”

•             The Cleveland Cavaliers fire Israeli-American head coach David Blatt, who led the team to the NBA Finals in 2015. Blatt releases a statement saying he was “grateful” for the chance to serve as coach. Led by LeBron James, the Cavaliers go on to win their first NBA championship under Blatt’s successor, Tyronn Lue.

Rabbi Eugene Borowitz, an influential thinker in Reform Judaism, dies at 91. A longtime faculty member at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, Borowitz was the author of 19 books and hundreds of articles on Jewish thought.

•             The Mount Freedom Jewish Center in New Jersey announces it has hired a woman using the title “rabbi.” Lila Kagedan, a graduate of New York’s Yeshivat Maharat, was ordained in June as an Orthodox clergywoman. The school permits graduates to choose their title; Kagedan is the first to choose rabbi.

•             Hundreds of protesters at a gay conference in Chicago, charging “pinkwashing” of Israeli misdeeds, disrupt a reception  for Israeli LGBT activists, forcing the event to shut down. The disruption is strongly condemned days later by several leading gay activists, including former Rep. Barney Frank and Edie Windsor, the plaintiff in the Supreme Court case that led to the legalization of gay marriage.

February 2016

•             Sen. Bernie Sanders wins the New Hampshire primary, becoming the first Jewish candidate in American history to win a presidential primary. The Vermont Independent, seeking the Democratic nomination, handily defeats former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, commanding 60 percent of the vote to Clinton’s 38 percent.

•             The Hungarian Holocaust drama “Son of Saul” wins an Oscar for best foreign language film. Other Jewish winners at the 2016 Academy Awards are “Amy,” the documentary about the late Jewish singer-songwriter Amy Winehouse, and Michael Sugar, who wins for best picture as co-producer of “Spotlight,” the story of the Boston Globe investigative team led by Jewish editor Marty Baron that exposed sex scandals in the Catholic Church.

•             The Canadian Parliament formally condemns the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, saying it “promotes the demonization and delegitimization of the State of Israel.” Passed by a vote of 229-51, the motion was introduced by the opposition Conservative Party but won support from the ruling Liberal Party as well.

•             The Jewish Theological Seminary announces the sale of $96 million worth of real estate assets and its intention to use the funds to upgrade its New York facility. The seminary, considered the flagship institution of the Conservative movement, says it intends to build a state-of-the-art library, auditorium and conference facilities, and a new 150-bed residence hall on its main campus.

•             Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump disavows the support of David Duke after earlier claiming he knew nothing about the former Ku Klux Klan leader’s views. In response, the Anti-Defamation League announces it will be providing all presidential candidates with information about hate groups so they can better determine which endorsements to accept and reject.