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It happened in 5763

Tishrei

• 11/9 Maj.-Gen. (res.) Meir Dagan appointed head of Mossad.
• 8/9 Quartet (representatives of the US, the UN, the EU, and Russia) agree on a three-stage "road map" to achieving peace in the Middle East including a declaration of Palestinian statehood with provisional borders by 2003.
• French Nazi collaborator Maurice Papon released from jail after French court rules him too ill to serve the rest of his 1998 sentence for complicity in crimes against humanity.
• 0/9 Suicide bomber kills five on a Tel Aviv bus.
• 4/9 Father killed, three sons wounded in shooting attack near Hebron.
• 6/9 Dr. Zerah Warhaftig, NRP and Mizrachi Organization leader and one of two last signatories of the Declaration of Independence, dies at 96.

Heshvan

• 11/10 Imre Kertesz, a Hungarian-Jewish novelist whose fiction draws on his experience in Auschwitz, wins the Nobel Prize for Literature.
• 7/10 After numerous confrontations, a showdown over the dismantling of the Gilad Farm illegal outpost. Settlers back down from their promise to vigorously defend the outpost.
• 1/10 48 young terror victims celebrate bar/bat mitzvas at Western Wall.
• 2/10 14 dead, 65 wounded in Wadi Ara bus bombing.
• 28/10 Suicide bomber kills three in Ariel.
• 1/10 National Unity government collapses, after Labor leader Binyamin Ben-Eliezer scolds Ariel Sharon for "abandoning the poor."
• irst gay MK, Professor Uzi Even, sworn in as a Meretz MK — the first-ever openly gay MK.

Kislev

• 12/11 Terrorist kills five including mother, two young sons in Kibbutz Metzer.
• 13/11 Harvard University poetry reading by Oxford University lecturer Tom Paulin canceled following protests by students and professors due to his racist and anti-Semitic statements.
• 14/11 Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in an interview on Channel 2 says he considers a Palestinian state an established fact.
• 17/11 12 Jewish worshipers returning to Kiryat Arba after praying at Machpela Cave in Hebron killed in Shabbat eve ambush.
• 18/11 Abba Eban, father of Israeli diplomacy, dies at age 87.
• 20/11 Amram Mitzna wins landslide victory in the primary election for Labor’s leadership.
• 22/11 eleven die in Jerusalem bus bombing. Four of those killed are children on their way to school.
• 29/11 Three Israelis, nine Kenyans killed in Mombasa hotel bombing. At about the same time, terrorists fire at least two missiles at an Arkia airliner carrying 261 passengers as it takes off for Israel from Mombasa’s airport. On the same day, six Israelis are killed in Beit She’an terror attack.
• 29/11 Ariel Sharon trounces Binyamin Netanyahu in Likud primary.
• 2/12 Jewish Agency declares a Jewish demographic emergency. Statistics show there is a reduction in the number of Jews living outside Israel at a rate of approximately 50,000 people per annum. Inside Israel, forecast shows Jews becoming a minority.

Tevet

• 11/12 Eli Pimstein confesses to murdering his 22-month-old daughter by drowning her in his bathtub.
• 15/12 Hollywood filmmaker Steven Spielberg pledges $1 million to aid Israeli victims of terrorism.
• 29/12 Two soldiers and two yeshiva students are murdered and 10 wounded when terrorists dressed in IDF uniforms burst into kitchen of the hesder yeshiva in Otniel.
• 1/1 Two birthright israel participants marry near Jerusalem.

Shvat

• 5/1 Rabbi wounded in Paris synagogue stabbing.
• 6/1 twenty-two people killed and more than 100 wounded when two Palestinian suicide bombers blow themselves up simultaneously on Tel Aviv pedestrian mall.
• 14/1 Senator Joseph Lieberman announces he will seek the Democratic nomination in the 2004 presidential race.
• 17/1 Israel’s first astronaut, Ilan Ramon, blasts into space on space shuttle Columbia.
• 19/1 Terrorists kill father of five at Shabbat dinner in an isolated encampment north of Kiryat Arba.
• 24/1 Three Israeli soldiers slain in Hebron hills terrorist ambush.
• 29/1 Ariel Sharon leads the Likud to a landslide victory over Labor in election. Shinui more than doubles its power and its leader Tommy Lapid promises to change the face of Israeli society. Labor suffers its worst defeat ever.
• 2/2 Columbia breaks up over Texas. Ilan Ramon and six other crew members killed in disaster.
• 6/2 Addressing the UN Security Council, US Secretary of State Colin Powell presents what he says is irrefutable and undeniable evidence that Iraq is harboring weapons of mass destruction and terrorist groups, and that Saddam Hussein will stop at nothing until something stops him.

1 Adar

• 13/2 Belgium’s Supreme Court rules that Ariel Sharon can be tried for war crimes once he no longer enjoys immunity as prime minister.
• 14/2 Foreign Minister Binyamin Netanyahu charges Belgium with blood libel.
• 16/2 Millions march worldwide in anti-war protests.
• 17/2 Jerusalem mayor Ehud Olmert resigns after nine and a half years in office, to run for Knesset.
• The Kinneret reaches original red line for the first time in two years and continues to rise.
• 19/2 Spymaster Isser Harel, one of the founding fathers of Israel’s intelligence establishment, dies at 91.
• 28/2 Daniel Libeskind, an Israeli-American originally from Poland, chosen as the architect to rebuild the World Trade Center.

2 Adar

• 6/3 Haifa bus bomber kills 17, wounds dozens in central Carmel district. A letter found on bomber’s body praises 9/11 attacks.
• 9/3 Two Palestinian terrorists disguised as yeshiva students infiltrate Kiryat Arba, shooting to death Eli and Dina Horowitz and wounding three.
• 11/3 The Palestinian Legislative Council approves creation of the post of prime minister in a 64-3 vote, calling to confirm the appointment of Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) as prime minister.
• 18/3 Finance Minister Binyamin Netanyahu proposes NIS 11.4 billion in cuts as he unveils the economic recovery plan calling on the nation to support the Treasury’s measures to cure Israel’s "hemorrhaging" economy.
• 19/3 IDF Home Front Command instructs Israeli public to seal rooms and to carry gas mask kits while US raises terror alert level to ’high’ as US troops await orders to attack Iraq.
• 21/3 Invasion begins as ground forces enter Iraq.
• 28/3 Hong Kong plans to quarantine 1,000 as SARS spreads.
• 1/4 Former Shin Bet agent provocateur Avishai Raviv acquitted of failing to notify authorities of Yigal Amir’s intention to assassinate prime minister Yitzhak Rabin.

Nisan

• 10/4 US forces take Baghdad.
• 20/4 The 60th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising marked.
• 24/4 WHO warns against travel to Toronto and Beijing due to SARS.
• 30/4 The Palestinian Legislative Council confirms Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) as the first Palestinian Authority prime minister and approves his cabinet.
• 1/5 Road map presented to Israel and the Palestinian Authority.
• oTwo British Muslims take part in what was to have been a double suicide bombing at Mike’s Place, an Anglo-Israeli pub in Tel Aviv. Three are killed and 60 wounded.

Iyar

• 5/5 Amram Mitzna resigns as leader of the Labor party.
• 18/5 At least 40 are dead in suicide attacks on Jewish and other targets in Casablanca, Morocco.
• 19/5 Seven killed in Jerusalem suicide bus bombing. Bomber disguised as a religious Jew.
• 20/5 Ari Fleischer, the public face of the White House through September 11, Afghanistan and Iraq, announces his resignation.
• Female suicide bomber kills three at Afula mall.
• 21/5 Interior Minister Avraham Poraz comes out against granting immediate citizenship to non-Jews who convert in Israel.
• 25/5 Prime Minister Ariel Sharon endorses US-written road map.

Sivan

• 5/6 At Aqaba Summit, Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas vows to end terror attacks on all Israelis; Prime Minister Ariel Sharon calls for Palestinian territorial contiguity and the immediate removal of unauthorized outposts; and US President George W. Bush calls for the division of the Holy Land, formally launching the road map.
• Jerusalem elects its first haredi mayor as Uri Lupolianski sweeps into Israel’s most prestigious and sensitive mayoral office.
• 12/6 sixteen people are killed and more than 100 wounded when Hamas suicide bomber dressed as a haredi Jew blows himself up on a bus in downtown Jerusalem.
• 20/6 Shimon Peres elected Labor Party’s temporary chairman.
• 25/6 Exodus author Leon Uris dies at 78.
• 30/6 Hamas, Jihad and Fatah announce conditional, three-month truce ("hudna").
• JERUSALEM severs ties with the BBC and will impose sanctions due to its coverage of Israel.

Tamuz

• 6/7 Oxford University takes first steps in disciplinary proceedings that could lead to the dismissal of Prof. Andrew Wilkie, who rejected the application of an Israel PhD candidate due to his nationality.
• 24/7 Two weeks after a group of 317 North Americans came on aliya through the Nefesh B’Nefesh 2003 project, a second planeload of almost 300 new immigrants lands at Ben-Gurion Airport from New York.
• 27/7 In a secret humanitarian rescue mission dubbed "Ezra Mizion," six elderly Jews are flown from Baghdad via Amman to Israel.
• 28/7 American actor Christopher Reeve visits Israel in a show of solidarity with Israelis who have disabilities.
• 29/7 Thirty-four years after a group of Black Hebrews arrived in Israel on tourist visas after having been expelled from Liberia, the estimated 3,000-strong community is to receive permanent residency status.

Av

• 2/8 Widespread searches begin for missing 18-year old Tiberias teenager Dana Bennet.
• 7/8 334 Palestinian prisoners released in a goodwill gesture.
• 14/8 75-year-old New York Jewish gem dealer caught in missile sale plot.
• 15/8 Heat wave kills thousands in Europe.
• 17/8 Former Ugandan dictator Idi Amin dies at 80.
• Power restored following worst blackout in American history.
• 20/8 TWENTY killed including at least six children and more than 100 wounded in suicide bombing on bus making its way from the Western Wall in Jerusalem. Three more die in ensuing days. On the same day at least 20 are killed by suicide bombing at UN headquarters in Baghdad.
• 22/8 Israel assassinates Hamas leader Ismail Abu Shanab; Palestinians call it a death blow to the cease-fire they declared two months earlier.
• 26/8 Israel returns bodies of two Hizbullah gunmen in a confidence-building move aimed at helping prospects of reaching prisoner exchange deal with Hizbullah.
• 27/8 New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg rides No. 2 bus in his second solidarity trip to Israel in two years.

Elul

• 1/9 Or Judicial Commission of Inquiry into October 2000 Arab riots releases its report.
• 2/9 Jonathan Pollard appears in public for the first time since sentencing in 1987 for spying for Israel, at hearing in Washington for leave to appeal against his life sentence.
• 6/9 Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas resigns.
• European Union decides to declare all arms of Hamas as terrorist organizations.
• 9/9 Prime Minister Ariel Sharon begins visit to India, the first ever by an Israeli prime minister.
• oEight killed in suicide bombing at Tzrifin army base. Several hours later, seven killed in suicide bombing at Café Hillel in Jerusalem’s Rehov Emek Refaim. Dead include director of Shaare Zedek Medical Center’s Emergency Department, Dr. David Applebaum and daughter, Nava.
• 10/9 Palestinian Legislative Council Speaker Ahmed Qurei accepts nomination as next PA prime minister.
• 11/9 Israeli Cabinet votes to "remove" Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat.
• 16/9 United States vetoes United Nations Security Council resolution demanding Israel not harm or expel Yasser Arafat; Britain, Germany and Bulgaria abstain.