BRET STEPHENS: Man of the Year
NO question: This was Paul Wolfowitz's year. On September 15, 2001, at a meeting in Camp David, he advised President George W. Bush to skip Kabul and train American guns on Baghdad. In March 2003, he got his wish. In the process, Wolfowitz became the most influential US deputy defense secretary ever - can you so much as name anyone else who held the post? And he's on the shortlist to succeed Colin Powell as secretary of state.

It happened in 5763

JANINE ZACHARIA: Invasive treatment
In 1979 he warned that Iraq would invade Kuwait. In 2001, he told the president to train his sights on Baghdad, not Kabul. Now Paul Wolfowitz is getting his way. Will he be proven right?

CALEV BEN-DAVID: The man at Ground Zero
This September 11 The New York Times duly editorialized on such weighty topics as the war on terror, the conflict in Iraq and the meaning of patriotism.

AMOTZ ASA-EL: The new politics
Tommy Lapid has finally proved that an Israeli political center not only exists, but can actually be transformed into political energy, mass, and light "You're a caricature of Michael Jackson!" screamed talk-show star Yosef "Tommy" Lapid in a typically witty, snappy, and well-aimed broadside at zany pop singer Aviv Gefen.

ALAN ABBEY: An Israeli journey to Jewishness
On the surface, Israel Air Force Col. Ilan Ramon was anything but the Israeli or Jewish Everyman. He was the elite of the elite, an Israeli "top gun," and on top of that, an astronaut who could hold his own with America's best.

LARRY DERFNER: Woman of valor
For Israelis who value economic equality, who believe it is no less important than economic freedom, who want the government to take more from the haves and give it to the have-nots - and this egalitarian streak cuts across Jews and Arabs, Left and Right, religious and secular - Vikki Knafo's protest was the one good thing that happened in this country last year.

HERB KEINON: The road not traveled
Glance back at the headlines that graced the newspapers in the two weeks preceding Rosh Hashana last year and you will noticesomething striking. Everything, at least on the diplomatic front, looks painfully the same.

PINHAS LANDAU : When wishful thinking met reality
The outgoing Jewish year will neither be missed, nor fondly remembered by most Israelis. It represented the third, and hence critical, year of struggle and hardship, both in the sphere of security and defense, and in that of economics and business.

HILARY LEILA KRIEGER: History in white
One year ago, the closest Andy Ram got to the action at Wimbledon was what he could see on his TV screen. Back and knee injuries had kept the 22-year-old tennis player on crutches for three months and off the court all season.

HANNAH BROWN: Movies of the Year
About three years ago, Brad Pitt and Robert Redford cancelled their reservations on flights to Israel, and a movie called Spy Game, a significant part of which was scheduled to be shot in and around Haifa, was completed in Morocco instead.

TALYA HALKIN: Between oblivion and stardom
Etti Abergel is something of a late bloomer. In the five years since she completed the Bezalel art school's graduate program, the 43-year old artist has been quietly working away in her Jerusalem studio, while remaining almost entirely unknown to the Israeli art establishment.

JANINE ZACHARIA: Wolfowitz on Iraq (Exclusive)
Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, architect of the war on Iraq, talks exclusively with The Jerusalem Post's Janine Zacharia in his Pentagon office about the U.S.'s much-criticized post-war planning effort and the impact he believes Saddam's downfall will have on the entire region.