top

Chairman of the Executive of the Jewish Agency and the WZO: Zeev Bielski.

Director General of the Jewish Agency: Moshe Vigdor.

Treasurer of the Jewish Agency: Shai Hermesh.

July 1: As newly appointed chairman of the Jewish Agency, Zeev Bielski says he will endeavour to bring the non-Orthodox majority of Jews in North America closer to Israel, where an Orthodox monopoly exists on marriage, conversion and other areas of personal life.

July 5: The Jewish Agency issues its annual report.

July 5: Nefesh Be'Nefesh issues its fact sheet.

July 6: In preparation for the 17th Maccabiah, the Jewish Agency is kicking off a special year-long study and volunteer program for visiting athletes.

July 7: The Jewish Agency resumes the Exodus Project.

July 12: More than 400 new immigrants leave North America for Israel on two specially chartered El Al flights. These are the first of eight flights of immigrants due to leave North America before the end of this year. For the first time, one of the flights will depart from Toronto.

July 13: Prime Minister Ariel Sharon greets more than 500 North American olim at the airport.

July 19: Former Maccabi Tel Aviv basketball player Tal Brody and basketball coach David Blatt answered the call of the Chairman of the Jewish Agency Zeev Bielski to send a letter to the Maccabiah participants titled: "We did it. How about you? Hope to meet you soon in Israel."

July 26: 330 people arrive on the first-ever chartered flight for French immigrants from Marseille to Tel Aviv.

August 1: 2000 immigrant children enjoy "Summer of Hebrew" camps sponsored by the Jewish Agency.

August 1: The Jewish Agency for Israel awards 56 scholarships to students at the Sapir Academic College. The awardees are all residents of the Gaza environs.

August 2: The Jewish Agency publishes the January - July Aliyah statistics for the GUS.

August 10: The Jewish Agency publishes the statistics of immigrants and Israelis handled by Aliyah emissaries.

August 17: 250 new immigrants from North America arrive at the Ben Gurion airport within the framework of Nefesh B'Nefesh and The Jewish Agency for Israel.

August 22: The Oz Club Scout Center is dedicated in Jerusalem.

August 31: The Jewish Agency and the Defense Ministry plan to offer soldiers an alternative to the self-financed, self-directed journeys of self-discovery that often follow the completion of their army service: a chance to serve as emissaries to Jewish communities in the Diaspora. The agency says that it hopes to recruit hundreds of soldiers, who after their army discharge will work to persuade Jewish youth abroad to come to Israel for a semester or a year of academic studies in the "Masa" program.

September 4: Michael Landsberg, Head of the Aliyah Delegation of the Jewish Agency for Israel in North America, accompanies the largest group of students, 35 who are on their way to study in Israel for three years as part of the 'Elite Academy High School' "Naale" in Hebrew. The group represents top achievers who passed a selection process and will complete three years of high school in Israel. Past graduates of the program were accepted to top American Universities.

September 5: The Masa Scholarship Committee convenes a special meeting and decides that any student from Tulane registering with an Israeli university would receive an automatic grant of $2,000 per semester, and a larger amount if he/she stays for the whole year.

September 6 : A farewell ceremony is held in honor of the Na'ale youth leaving to Israel. Na'ale is a program that assists youth from the Former Soviet Union who move to Israel before their parents. After passing a screening process in their homeland, the youth arrive in Israel and begin integrating into Israeli society, in their studies and in dormitories and Kibbutzim around Israel.

October 23: Visiting the northern Israeli Arab town of Shfaram, the head of the Jewish Agency Ze'ev Bielski grants victims of August's terror attack financial aid from the Agency's terror victims fund. Following the attack, six of those wounded in the attack and the wife of the slain bus driver request financial aid from the Jewish Agency, which grants the victims financial aid to the tune of NIS 100,000 in accordance with criteria used for victims of Palestinian terror attack. The ceremony in Shfaram is attended by Bielski, representatives of the victim's families, the head of the terror victims fund in the Agency, Boaz Hermann and Shfaram Mayor Ursan Yassin.

October 31 - November 2: The Jewish Agency Board of Governors meets in Jerusalem. As the Jewish Agency faces a a budget cut of $ 20 Million for 2006.

November 2: The conversion rate in Israel in 2005 is five times higher than in 2002, an Absorption Ministry report reveals. According to statistics presented by Absorption Minister Tzipi Livni to the Knesset's Absorption Committee, while in the year 2002, 852 people converted to Judaism in Israel, 4,242 converted in 2005.

November 10: Ethiopia agrees to step up the immigration of the Falashmura to the Jewish state. According to the agreement, some 600 Falashmura, descendants of Jewish families that converted to Christianity, will be brought to Israel monthly. A total of 12,000 will arrive by 2007.

November 11: Jewish Agency Chairman Ze'ev Bielski is gives an interview in Haaretz.

July 4: The Be'er Sheva Magistrate's Court issues a seven-day remand extension against Shimshon Sitrin, the settler said to be the ringleader of the mob that tried to lynch a Palestinian youth at Muasi beach in Gaza.

July 6: The Israeli Embassy in Cairo holds a literary soiree for Eli Amir, whose new book, "Yasmin," is arousing avid interest in Egypt.

July 11: Pullout of Gaza foes plant a a dummy bomb in the Jerusalem bus station. Police evacuated the central bus station in Jerusalem on Monday evening after finding a gas canister that turned out to be a dummy bomb. Right-wing activists are suspected of planting the package to protest the disengagement plan. A note reading, "The disengagement will explode in our faces" is found attached to a suspicious package including a clock, electrical wires and a 12-kilogram gas canister.

July 11: The 17th Maccabiah opens.

July 11: Arab Israeli Asala Shahada of Sakhnin becomes one of the first medalists in this year's Maccabiah Games with a victory in the women's 200-meter breastroke in the Wingate Institute pool, causing a wave of pride in her father, family and community.

July 11: U.S. swimming legend Mark Spitz returns to where he won his first gold medal 40 years ago, this time leading the 800-member U.S. delegation at the 17th Maccabiah Games.

July 12: Israel will soon be home to the largest Jewish community in the world for the first time in two millennia.

July 12: An Islamic Jihad suicide bomber kills three women and injures 90, five
seriously, near the Sharon shopping mall in Netanya.

July 12: The Clubmarket supermarket chain files for protection from bankruptcy, owing NIS 1.28 billion.

July 13: In a step seen as a watershed moment in his disengagement plan, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon orders the Gaza Strip closed to Israeli visitors, declaring it a closed military area in order to blunt plans by anti-pullout activists to flood the Strip with protesters.

July 16: The 22nd International Film Festival closes in Jerusalem.

July 17: After 58 years Kibbutz Givat Brenner's legendary slik (arms cache) is unearthed. The kibbutz elders are overcome by emotion as they behold the 48 Sten guns and Canadian rifles, 14 machine guns, 136 hand grenades, and thousands of rounds of ammunition, all arrayed on the ground. Those weapons had been stolen from the British army by their fathers in order to fight for the Land of Israel.

July 17: The Bar Ilan University Archaeology Department announces that two fragments of a nearly 2,000-year-old Torah scroll were found in Judean Desert.

July 18: Anti-pullout demonstrators begin their Gush Katif solidarity march from Netivot. The police allow them to sleep at Kfar Maimon. Yesha Council settler leaders say they will resume the pullout protest march toward Gush Katif, which police have prohibited. As the protesters reach the gate of Kfar Maimon, they face off against forces deployed to prevent march to Gush Katif settlement bloc.

July 19: Two religious female soldiers from the West Bank refused orders to evacuate settlements under the disengagement plan. It is the first incident of female soldiers refusing pullout orders.

July 20: Two Israel Defense Forces soldiers from an infantry regiment of ultra-Orthodox troops are arrested on suspicion of placing the fake bomb at the Jerusalem central bus station.

July 20: The heads of the Yesha Council of Settlements announce that the march to the Gush Katif settlement bloc is over, and that they will instead try to use small groups to infiltrate into the Strip, which has been declared closed to non-resident Israelis.

July 20: The High Court of Justice rejects a petition by three environmental organizations against the government's plan to build temporary housing for evacuated Gaza settlers in Nitzan, on the grounds that an agreement between the petitioners and the government has made it irrelevant.

July 20: The Knesset rejects three bills to delay the disengagement. Finance Minister Benyamin Netanyahu is absent from the vote.

July 20: A short-lived truce between Fatah and Hamas breaks down, when armed clashes between the Palestinian movements resume. An Egyptian delegation is expected to arrive in the area in an attempt to implement a ceasefire between the organizations.

July 21: The Yesha Council of settlements reneges on a verbal agreement with security officials by deciding to continue the demonstration at Kfar Maimon, senior army officers say. The Israel Defense Forces believe that the demonstrators plan to stay there for a long time - to exhaust the security forces.

July 21: Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Dan Halutz approvea a series of steps to harshen disciplinary measures against refuseniks ahead of the disengagement plan.

July 21: The Knesset adopts Amendment 4 to the Women's Equal Rights Law; from now on, women must be present at state policy negotiations.

July 21: The Palestinian government allocates $10 million for connecting the settlements that are due to be evacuated in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, and the areas surrounding them, to the energy and transportation infrastructures of the Palestinian Authority.

July 22: Two leaders of Habayit HaLeumi, a right-wing organization opposed to the disengagement plan, will remain in custody until the completion of the legal proceedings against them, the Supreme Court rules.

July 23: A Jerusalem couple is killed in a shooting attack at the Gush Katif Junction in Gaza.

July 25: Gush Katif residents dismantle greenhouses and move dairies.

July 25: Thousands of soldiers and policemen begin an intensive training for the pullout from the Gaza Strip, 20 days before the start of the operation. To make the exercises more concrete, the Israel Defense Forces have constructed a "settlement" at the Tze'elim army base, in a training installation which was once used to simulate a Palestinian village.

July 25: The Vatican envoy is summoned to the Foreign Ministry as Israel expresses its outrage that Pope Benedict XVI failed to condemn terror against Israelis.

July 25: Israeli Pharmaceutical manufacturer Teva announces the completion of a deal to purchase the American drug firm IVAX. The value of the transaction is estimated at $7.2 billion.

July 26: 160 "luxury trailers" are ready for evacuees at Nitzan.

July 26: Prime Minister Ariel Sharon leaves for an official visit to Paris as guest of French President Jacques Chirac.

July 27: The prime minister's son, MK Omri Sharon, is to be indicted for flouting campaign finance laws, forging corporate documents, perjury and breach of trust.

July 27: A group of extreme-right activists say that they have held a ceremony to place a pulsa denura, a halakhic curse, on Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in order to bring about his death.

July 31: Disengagement protestors gather in Sderot and try again to head for Gush Katif. Thousands of police are deployed to stop the pullout foes marching on Gaza.

July 31: The 14th World Congress of Jewish Studies opens in Jerusalem.

August 1: Some NIS 3.3 billion is needed to absorb about 13,000 Falashmura immigrants from Ethiopia, according to an Absorption Ministry plan.

August 1: After seven years of planning and foot-dragging, the Wisconsin Plan welfare-to-work program opens its doors to more than 700 welfare recipients at seven employment centers across the country.

August 1: The Israel Defense Force is set to deploy 30,000 soldiers in western Negev in order to prevent the upcoming unauthorized anti-pullout rally from becoming a mass march into Gaza.

August 1: Israel and Egypt reach an agreement in principle over the deployment of 750 Egyptian border guards along the Philadelphi Corridor, paving the way for the IDF to pullout from the Gaza-Egypt border.

August 1: Thirty-one bereaved families reach an agreement whereby their loved ones will be disinterred from the Gush Katif cemetery and moved elsewhere. Most of the families will have their dead relatives buried in Nitzan, while another two choose graves sites in Jerusalem.

August 2: A deal is reached between security forces and the Yesha Council over today's mass anti-disengagement rally in the Negev town of Sderot. The police agree to a scaled-down ralley. The Yesha Council promises that, immediately upon the conclusion of the rally, participants will be bused to Ofakim, where they will spend the night. The Yesha Council announces that the deal does not include any limit on the number of participants in the rally. Police, on the other hand, say the council has agreed to all of their conditions: the number of participants will be limited to a few thousand, and the rally will be held in the local sports hall and will last two and a half hours. The Yesha Council confirms that agreement has been reached on sending participants to their homes on Friday.

August 3: The Education Ministry cancels a course on multiculturalism that was to be held in the coming year for one class consisting of Arab, secular and Orthodox Jewish students from a number of highschools in Jerusalem. The official reason for the cancellation is administrative, however, the Jerusalem Foundation, which initiated and was to have funded 80 percent of the program, says it was told unofficially that the main reason is the inclusion in the bibliography of articles by Edward Said, a literary critic and Palestinian activist, and MK Azmi Bishara.

August 3: Thousands of pullout opponents, led by settler leaders and rabbis, face off against security forces on the outskirts of the Negev town of Ofakim, with the demonstrators seeking to march to the Gaza Strip and thousands of soldiers and policemen forming a human chain to block them.

August 4: A Jewish soldier who went AWOL several weeks ago in protest over the disengagement plan, opens fire in a bus in the Arab town of Shfaram, killing four people. (More.)

August 7: Finance Minister Bibi Netanyahu resigns from the government. Ehud Olmert is appointed new finance minister.

August 7: The Cabinet approves the evacuation of Morag, Netzarim and Kfar Darom.

August 7: A desalination plant opens in Ashkelon.

August 7: Shfaram buries its dead: Hazar and Dina Turki, Michel Bahus and Nader Hayak.

August 8: The annual poverty report of the National Insurance Institute shows that 1.5 million Israelis, 700,000 of whom are children, live beyond the poverty line.

August 9: The government approves the 2006 State Budget by a 12 minister-majority. Eight ministers vote against the proposal.

August 9: The Israel Defense Forces close off the northern West Bank settlements of Ganim and Kadim, refusing to allow non-resident Israelis into two of the four West Bank settlements slated for evacuation under the disengagement plan.

August 9: Gaza Strip settlers will be required to leave their homes by midnight on August 14, at which time voluntary evacuation will end and the presence of Israeli civilians in the Gaza Strip will be considered illegal, according to a letter distributed by Israel Defense Forces officers to residents of Gush Katif, six days ahead of the evacuation of the Gaza Strip.

August 9: Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz and Palestinian Minister Muhammad Dahlan reach an agreement on the contentious question of clearing up the rubble of Gaza Strip settlements. Under the deal, Israel will raze some of the structures in the region, while Palestinian and Egyptian contractors will perform other demolitions and will take care of the cleanup, under the supervision of the World Bank.

August 9: The residents of Elei Sinai decide not to resist the evacuation.

August 10: Archaeologists complete eight weeks of digging at a cave close to Kibbutz Tzuba near Jerusalem, revealing a monumental rock-hewn water system dating back to the time of King Hezekiah

August 10: A total of 688 minors were detained by police since January 2005 in connection with offences committed in the framework of the anti-pullout campaign.

August 10: The "Disengagement Game" on the Nana website puts the player into Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's shoes.

August 10: In rare steps a week before the onset of evacuations, authorities order an Israeli-American Kach activist deported to the United States for 40 days, and will force two protest leaders at a northern West Bank settlement to return to their former enclave of Kiryat Arba near Hebron.

August 10: The travel warning for Israelis to stay away from Anatolia creats a wave of vacation cancellations for trips to Turkey.

August 10: Police arrest an Israeli Arab who is found hording pipe bombs in a nature reserve site in northern Israel, saying he was looking for "treasure" he says late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat has hidden inside.

August 10: 70,000 pullout foes pray at the Western Wall in Jerusalem.

August 11: A suspected Syrian al-Qaida militant appears before a Turkish court to face charges, and shouts to journalists from a courthouse window that he was planning to attack Israeli cruise ships on Turkey's Mediterranean coast.

August 14: In an effort to prevent terror attacks during the disengagement, some 7,500 Palestinian police are deployed on near settlements in the Gaza Strip.

14./15. August Midnight: The implementation of the disengagement plan has begun: At midnight the Israel Defense Forces close the Kissufim roadblock at the entrance to the Gaza Strip for the last time, and in the morning some 600 teams of officers from the army and police distribute evacuation orders instructing settlers to leave their homes by August 17. If the settlers don't leave on their own, they will be forcibly evacuated. The IDF also closes the other roadblocks on the Israel-Gaza border - the Karni crossing in the north and the Sufa crossing in the south. In addition, the northern West Bank area encompassing the four settlements slated for evacuation is declared a closed military zone.

August 15: The cabinet ratifies the evacuation of Gush Katif, the largest settlement bloc in the Gaza Strip, as anti-disengagement activists hold a protest outside Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's office in Jerusalem. The vote is 16 in favor and four against. Labor ministers back the measure. The dissenting votes are cast by Likud ministers Limor Livnat, Tzachi Hanegbi, Yisrael Katz and Dan Naveh.

August 15: Prime Minister Ariel Sharon addresses the nation about the Disengagement plan.

August 16: A special police unit and engineering forces dismantle and remove the main metal entrance gate to the southern Gaza Strip settlement of Neveh Dekalim. This move makes it much more difficult for anti-pullout protesters to prevent the entry into the settlement of moving trucks and security forces involved in evacuation efforts. The Israel Defense Forces is hoping to finish evacuating the Gaza Strip settlements within 10 days, despite the fact that the thousands of people who infiltrated the settlements in recent weeks are already escalating the opposition beyond what the residents themselves deem appropriate.

August 16: Police arrest at least 50 youths who clash with officers and attempted to prevent the entry of the containers to Neveh Dekalim.

August 16: A.B. Yehoshua’s new book, “The Supervisor of Human Resources’ Mission” is the winner of the Giovanni Bocaccio literary prize in Italy.

August 17: More than 15,000 police officers and soldiers are being deployed in Gush Katif to begin the forced evacuation of the settlements.

August 17: A female Israel Defense Forces soldier is stabbed by a pullout opponent in the Gaza Strip settlement of Morag, as security forces begin forcibly evacuating settlers. The soldier is lightly hurt.

August 17: A right-wing activist sets herself ablaze during an anti-pullout protest in the Negev town of Netivot.

August 17: Asher Weissgan, a West Bank settler shoots to death four Palestinians with whom he has worked and wounds two others, one of them seriously, in the industrial area of the West Bank settlement of Shiloh.

August 18: A large force of soldiers and police officers in anti-riot gear surround the synagogue in the hardline Gaza settlement of Kfar Darom, where hundreds of pullout opponents have barricaded themselves.

August 19: Three missiles are fired from the Jordanian port of Aqaba, missing a US Navy ship docked in the port but hitting Eilat. A Jordanian soldier dies when one of the missile hits the dockside. An internet statement, purportedly from a group which says it has links to al-Qaeda, says it is to blame.

August 19: IDF bulldozers start demolishing first homes and caravans in the Gaza settlement of Kerem Atzmona.

August 22: The Israel Defense Forces and police complete the evacuation of all Gaza Strip settlers with the evacuation of the settlement of Netzarim.

August 22: Renowned Hebrew poet and Israel Prize laureate Dalia Rabikovitch dies at 69.

August 23: The IDF and police begin the evacuation of the West Bank settlements of Sar-Nur and Homesh. The main focus of anti-disengagement resistance is expected to be in Sa-Nur, where many Kach activists and hilltop youth are believed to have set up a camp.

August 25: Israel is starting to build in Area E-1, between Jerusalem and the West Bank settlement of Ma'aleh Adumim. The Civil Administration's Planning Council in the West Bank is expected to approve relocating the headquarters of the Judea and Samaria police district from the Jerusalem neighborhood of Ras al-Amud to Area E-1 in the coming days.

August 25: A young British yeshiva student is killed after a Palestinian man stabbed him in the Old City of Jerusalem, close to the Jaffa Gate.

August 25: The IDF kill five Palestinians in Tul Karm. Rockets are fired at both Sderot in the south and Moshav Margaliot in the north.

August 28: A suicide bomber rocks the center of the Negev capital of Be'er Sheva, wounding at least 10 people, two of them seriously, in the first such terrorist attack since Israel began its withdrawal from the Gaza Strip earlier in the month.

August 28: In a first interview with an Israeli journalist in a long time Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas says that the ceasefire (known as Hudna) reached with Israel in February would be upheld indefinitely. Abbas has compliments for Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in wake of the disengagement. He expresses confidence in Sharon's standing in Israel despite of pressure from within the Likud party. "I was glad to see that the prime minister maintained his public support in Israel. Sharon is one of the strongest leaders in Israel's history, in the vein of Ben Gurion and Rabin, he is a strong man who made history," the chairman says.

August 28: Amos Oz is awarded the Goethe Prize of the City of Frankfurt, Germany.

August 30: In a direct challenge to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, MK Benjamin Netanyahu declares his candidacy for chairmanship of the Likud and as the party's candidate for the premiership.

September 1: Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom and his Pakistani counterpart hold the first acknowledged high-level talks between the two countries in a meeting in Turkey, in the first diplomatic spin-off from Israel’s withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.

September 1: Israeli and Egyptian officials sign an agreement in Egypt to deploy 750 Egyptian border guards along the Philadelphi route between Sinai and the Gaza Strip.

September 1: Pullout objectors add a new “commemoration display” to the Yad Vashem Holocaust museum, “in memory of the 25 Gush Katif and northern West Bank communities destroyed by enemy (of the Jewish people) Ariel Sharon.” Yad Vashem removes the objects and condemns the act.

September 7: An earthquake that measures 3.7 on the Richter scale shooks the Jordan Valley. Tremors are felt in the West Bank's Argaman valley and in the nearby settlement bearing the same name, as well as in Tel Aviv and elsewhere in the region.

September 8: An Israeli plane takes off for the United States, carrying some 15 tons of aid and equipment for victims of Hurricane Katrina.

September 11: According to a recent study, some 170 organizations provide emergency food regularly for least 500,000 Israelis.

September 11: In a largely symbolic cabinet vote the ministers unanimously give the Israel Defense Forces the green light to end military rule in the Gaza Strip, installed 38 years ago following the Six-Day War. The cabinet also approves the withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Philadelphi route along the Gaza-Egypt border, where Egyptian and Palestinian forces began their deployment the previous day. The IDF will begin withdrawing from the Gaza Strip at night, and by 8 A.M. the next morning the last Israeli soldier is to have left the Strip. Just after sunrise, the last column of tanks rumbles out of Gaza, passing through the Kissufim crossing into Israel.

September 12: Palestinians set fire to at least four synagogues in evacuated Gaza Strip settlements a day after the cabinet reversed an earlier decision and says Israel Defense Forces should withdraw without demolishing the synagogues.

September 15: Prime Minister Ariel Sharon addresses the UN General Assembly.

September 23: An explosion during a Hamas parade in Jabalya, in which 17 Palestinians are killed and some 140 injured, immediately becomes a test of the Palestinian Authority and the unwritten agreement between it and Israel over maintaining quiet on the border. Hamas exploits the explosion - for which Israel is not responsible - to shower Sderot with dozens of Qassam rockets. The security cabinet decides that Israel will fire artillery against the Qassam launchers in the Gaza Strip in response to the barrage of rockets on Sderot.

September 23: Simon Wiesenthal is buried in Herzliya. No cabinet ministers attend the funeral, and Prime Minister Ariel Sharon stays away due to security concerns. Only Deputy Minister Michael Melchior represents the government at the funeral.

September 27: Plia Albeck, a former key government legal official whose rulings on the extent of state lands paved the way for the construction of the more than 100 settlements that she once called "my children," dies at the age of 68.

September 27: Winds blow anti-Hamas leaflets meant for Gaza residents towards Sderot.

September 28: The exhibition "Rome to Jerusalem: Four Jewish Masterpieces from the Vatican Library" opens at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. Four of the most important illuminated Hebrew manuscripts in the collection of the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana are exhibited for the first time in Israel, as part of the series of Timeless Masterpieces on loan from sister institutions in honor of the Israel Museum’s 40th Anniversary.

September 28: Prime Minister Ariel Sharon wins the Likud Central Committee vote on whether to hold an early Likud Party primary by a slim 104-vote margin. The 1,433 to 1,329 victory over Netanyahu, who pushed for the proposal to hold the primary in 60 days, puts a freeze on the struggle within the Likud until April, when the primaries are scheduled under the party constitution.

September 28: According to the Central Statistics Bureau report, the size of the Jewish population in Israel has decreased in comparison to other communities. By the end of 2004, Israel's population reached 6,869,500, including 5,237,600 Jews (76.2 percent), 1,340,200 Israeli Arabs (19.5 percent) and 291,700 "others" (4.2 percent). In 2004, the Jewish community constituted 76.2 percent of Israel's total population in comparison to 77.8 percent in 2000. However, the Muslim population reached 16.1 percent in 2004, in comparison to 15.2 percent in 2000. The population growth in 2004 stood at 1.8 percent, remaining stable since 2003 - 89 percent due to natural causes and only 11 percent as a result of immigration. During the 1990s immigration stood at 56 percent. Among the four largest cities in Israel, Tel Aviv is the most crowded with 7,170 people per square kilometer, followed by Jerusalem with 5,642, Haifa with 4,211 and Rishon Lezion with 3,700.

September 28: Seven Japanese sailors die after the 41,507-ton Zim Asia collides with their fishing boat, causing it to capsize 40 kilometers off the cape of Nosappu in northern Japan.

October 1: Israeli judoka Tania Simantov retains her title in the under-48 kilogram category at the European U20 Judo Championship in Zagreb. Alice Schlesinger wins bronze for the second year running in the under-63 kilogram class.

October 9: The Egyptian Agricultural Ministry's decides to forbid the cutting of palm fronds from date trees at el-Arish in the Sinai in order to protect them from damage. El-Arish has been the main source of the lulav branches (700,000) imported by Israel over the past two decades.

October 9: Former prime minister Ehud Barak announces that he is withdrawing from Labor party primaries race. Barak calls on other candidates to do same and back Vice Premier Shimon Peres.

October 10: Israeli and U.S. citizen Yisrael Aumann and American Thomas C. Schelling win the 2005 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. Aumann, who was born in Frankfurt, Germany but holds U.S. and Israeli citizenship, is a professor at the Center for Rationality at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Aumann and Schelling win the prize "for having enhanced our understanding of conflict and cooperation through game-theory analysis," the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences says.

October 17: Three Israeli civilians are killed and another three Israelis are wounded in a drive-by shooting in the West Bank, while a fourth Israeli was moderately to seriously wounded in a separate attack

October 17: The Markstone Capital Group acquires the entire Steimatzky chain of book stores and publishing house, which is run jointly with Keter, for $50-60 million. The deal also covers Steimatzky's publishing house and operations outside Israel.

October 20: Officials from Israel's Veterinary Service meet with their Jordanian counterparts to coordinate measures against bird flu.

October 20: Police investigators from the Tel Aviv District fraud unit seize ten paintings said to be by Israeli painter Nahum Guttman, all of which have been identified as forgeries.

October 20: Painter Efraim Reuytenberg, who signed his works as "Fima," dies, aged 91.

October 23: The dearth of work days during the High Holiday season creates a short supply of dairy and chicken products.

October 24: Three Zim Asia crewmen are arrested over the Japanese fishing boat deaths.

October 25: The film "Frozen Days", directed by Danny Lerner, wins the prize for the best Israeli feature movie at the Haifa Film Festival.

October 26: Microsoft founder and chairman Bill Gates, on his first visit to Israel announces an agreement between his company and the Israeli government to encourage the development of Israeli technology, worth some $1.4 million in the next three years. Gates meets with outstanding Israeli technology students and makes a presentation on the future of global technology and outlined the latest research by Microsoft.

October 26: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad addresses a conference called the "The World without Zionism" and calls for Israel to be "wiped off the map." The Islamic Republic has refused to recognise Israel's right to exist and supports Palestinian militant groups such as Islamic Jihad.

October 26: A suicide bomber strikes in the open air market in the coastal city of Hadera, killing five people and wounding some 55 others, five seriously.

October 27: Vice Premier Shimon Peres says Iran should be expelled from the United Nations.

October 27: A total of 50 punctured tires, damaged military vehicles, and a burned down army van is only part of the damage reported in the aftermath of the evacuation of a new West Bank outpost erected illegally near the settlement of Elon Moreh.

October 27: Seven Palestinians, including at least four civilians, are killed in the Gaza Strip when the Israel Defense Forces assassinate an Islamic Jihad operative.

October 30: The Wohl Centre at Bar-Ilan University , the first building in Israel to be designed by world-renowned architect Daniel Libeskind marks its completion at a gala dedication ceremony.

November 1 : The World Team Chess Championships begin in Beer Sheva.

November 1: With help from Hollywood director Steven Spielberg, Israel's Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial opens a Holocaust film library.

November 4: Yad Vashem hosts for the first time a delegation from the Tutsi tribe, survivors of the genocide in Rwanda, for an eight-day seminar.

November 5: The family of Ahmed Ismail Khatib, 13, shot by the IDF in Jenin decides to donate his organs to 'the children of Israel'.

November 5: The ruins of the oldest Christian church in the Middle East, and probably the whole world, are discovered in the Megido prison area. Ornaments pave the foundations of the church where inscriptions and biblical citations in old Greek are found.

November 7: Former Genesis lead singer, British pop-idol Phil Collins arrives in Israel Sunday, and is scheduled to perform at a live concert at the Blumfield Stadium in Jaffa.

November 7: The Knesset approves the appointment of Ehud Olmert to the post of finance minister by a 71-41 margin, after earlier rejecting Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s bid to have all three of his ministerial appointments approved.

November 10: In an unexpected result and a blow to the Labor old guard, Histadrut labor federation Chairman Amir Peretz is Thursday named the new chairman of the Labor Party, defeating the incumbent and favorite, Vice Premier Shimon Peres. Peretz has won with 42.35 percent of the votes, while Peres is backed by 39.96 percent of voters. In third place is Benjamin Ben Eliezer, with 16.82 percent of the vote.

November 12: Some 200,000 people gather in Tel Aviv marking in the memorial rally marking the anniversary of the assassination of former prime minister Rabin by a far-right Israeli. Guest of honor iis former US President Bill Clinton.

November 13: Children's author and Bialik Prize laureate Miriam Roth dies at 95. Her first children's book "A Tale of Five Balloon" was published in 1974, and later she wrote the popular books "Yael's House" and "Hot Corn". Her 22nd book "Confused Yuval" was published in 2000.

July 15: The Meir Einayim synagogue in Cairo's Me'adi neighborhood opens for prayer.

August 1: A new study program for U.S. high school students focusing on the Holocaust is unveiled at the Universal Studios in Los Angeles. The curriculum is presented by Yad Vashem, the Anti-Defamation League and Steven Spielberg's Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation.

August 3: Rome's city council announces it has acquired a plot of land next to the former residence of Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini to house a museum dedicated to Holocaust victims.

August 5: Philosopher Raymond Klibansky dies, aged 99.

August 8: A first-ever congress of Sephardic Jews designed to unite longtime Jewish communities in the Caucasus and Central Asia concludes with plans announced to open a major center for Sephardic Jews in Moscow.

August 8: The bloodstained bandage that wrapped Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's head after he was injured in fighting during the 1973 Yom Kippur War has been offered for sale on e-Bay with the bidding starting at $10,000.

August 19: Pope Benedict XVI visits the Jewish community of Köln, Germany. Israeli Cantor Chaim Adler sings cantorial works and chants from the Torah.

August 31: A U.S. federal judge sentences a man to 39 years in prison for firebombing a synagogue and later trying to send a racist later to the congregation. The defendant raises his hand in a stiff-armed Nazi salute as the judge leaves the court.

September 7: Jewish leaders in Croatia say they will vote against extending the contract of the country's only rabbi, accusing him of dividing the tiny community and triggering a public dispute over his ouster.

September 12: The first synagogue is inaugurated in Cyprus.

September 15: The Vienna city council lifts the parliamentary immunity of a politician who suggested that concentration camp victims looked better than himself.

September 19: Israeli President Moshe Katsav lays the foundation stone for Estonia's first synagogue since the Holocaust. Katsav also laid a wreath at the site of the Klooga concentration camp deep in the Estonian forest.

September 20: Simon Wiesenthal, the Holocaust survivor who helped track down numerous Nazi war criminals following World War II and spent the later decades of his life fighting anti-Semitism and prejudice against all people dies, aged 96.

September 21: Hundreds of Ethiopians who claim their ancestors were forced to convert from Judaism begin a three-day hunger strike at a Falash Mura camp in Addis Ababa in order to pressure the Israeli government to let them immigrate to Israel. Between 1,000 and 1,800 people will pray and refuse food and drink for 72 hours.

September 22: The French town of Troyes, where famed Torah scholar Rashi lived, is celebrating the 900th anniversary of his death with numerous activities beginning in January, including conferences and the naming of a square after him.

September 28: Ariel Muzicant, head of the Austrian Jewish community, launches an unusual marketing campaign calling on Jews, particularly from the Commonwealth of Independent States, to join the Jewish community in Austria where they can enjoy physical security, a community infrastructure and a developed economy.

October 4: One New Orleans synagogue opens for the Rosh Hashana services.

October 9: A memorial to the victims of the Holocaust is unveiled at a former Jewish cemetery in Usti nad Labem, 100 kilometers north of Prague.

October 10: An Orthodox Jewish synagogue in Stamford Hill in London is attacked and vandalized - not by anti-Semitic thugs, but by fellow Jews who regard its leaders' outspoken condemnation of Israel as a betrayal.

October 10: Hundreds of Jewish Ukrainians light candles and pray at the Babi Yar ravine, 10 days after the official ceremony marking 64 years since the massacre.

October 11: The Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage opens in Cleveland, Ohio.

October 13: After intense rain and flooding closed Cheshire County’s (New Hampshire) only synagogue earlier this month, the Jewish community holds its Yom Kippur services beneath the cross at Keene’s First Baptist
Church.

October 13: The Swedish Academy announces Harold Pinter is the recipient of the 2005 Nobel Prize in Literature, stating that, "in his plays [he] uncovers the precipice under everyday prattle and forces entry into oppression's closed rooms".

October 16: Spanish police locate the hiding place of Aribert Heim, also known as "Dr. Death," one of the most-wanted Nazi war criminals still living. Apprehending the 91-year-old war criminal, who operated at the Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria, and at Sachsenhausen and Buchenwald in Germany, is only a matter of time, according to Spanish police sources. The discovery of Heim's hiding place was made possible through information received from Germany and from the Simon Wiesenthal Center

October 17: The first rabbi to serve Krakow full-time since the Holocaust takes up his post.

October 20: Linguist Noam Chomsky is named the world's top public intellectual in a poll conducted among more than 20,000 respondents from around the world.

October 24: Jewish cemeteries are desecrated in Ethiopia.

October 26: Newark Mayor Sharpe James helps writer Philip Roth unveil a plaque on a street sign renaming the road 'Philip Roth Plaza.' Older, 'Jewish' Newark has served as setting for many of Roth's 26 books.

October 26: Rome's chief rabbi sparks a controversy by boycotting a major Vatican inter-religious event marking "Nostra Aetate" because of the presence of French Catholic cardinal Jean-Marie Lustiger who had converted from Judaism.

October 27: An anti-Jewish terror cell is convicted in Germany.

October 27 : British Jewish groups express concern about a poem written from the perspective of Adolf Hitler and published in a collection of schoolchildren's works.

October 29: Germany's highest administrative court upholds claims to real estate in Berlin by heirs of the Jewish Wertheim family who lost their department store fortune under the Nazis.

November 1: Israeli ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Gillerman introduces a resolution in the U.N. General Assembly that designates January 27 as an annual commemoration day for the 6 million Jews and other victims murdered in the Nazi Holocaust during World War Two. The UN approves the resolution unanimously.

November 2: Two female youths, an Israeli and a Palestinian, received the King Hussein Prize for promoting peace during a ceremony held in New York. The wife of late King Hussein of Jordan, Queen Nour, presents the annual prize to Oriella Ben-Zvi and Nisrine Shahin of the ‘One Voice’ peace organization.

November 7: A memorial to Holocaust victims is daubed with neo-Nazi slogans and defaced with black paint in the eastern German city of Dessau.

November 8: One of the highest officials of Austria's public radio and TV broadcasting corporation, ORF, Walter Seledec, attends a Nazi commemoration as guest of honor.

The Jewish Museum in New York exhibits: The Power of Conversation: Jewish Women and their Salons; Wild Things: The Art of Maurice Sendak; Body Politic: Recent Video by Israeli Artist; and Our Great Garden: Nurturing Planet Earth.