YEAR IN REVIEW 5749 YEAR IN REVIEW

RABBI MOSHE LEVINGER, leader

of the Gush Emunim settlers
movement in Israel, went on trial
this summer, charged in the
shooting death of an Arab man.

ISRAEL LAUNCHED her first
satellite, Ofek-1, in October.

DOZENS OF ARMENIAN VICTIMS of last winter's
earthquake were operated on and treated with
artificial limbs in Israel before being flown home.
It was one of the Jewish state's rare public
relations coups of a difficult year.

YASSIR ARAFAT had plenty to smile about this year, staging a major

diplomatic coup by proclaiming a Palestinian state, announcing
the PLO's recognition of Israel, and embarking on official
talks with the U.S.

by the results of Israel's
deadlocked November elections
which led to what has become
known as the Who Is A Jew?
crisis. What in Israel was
viewed as a strictly political
issue — with bargaining by both
Labor and Likud to woo the Or-
thodox parties into a coalition
— was seen among many Ameri-
can Jews as a personal identity
issue, namely the status and

legitimacy of non-Orthodox
Jews.
Dozens of American Jewish
delegations flew on emergency
missions to Israel to express
outrage and to explain to Israeli
leaders their feelings and warn
them of the dire effects of
legislation to amend the Law of
Return. Never before had Ameri-
can Jews reacted so emotionally
to a religious issue, and never
before had they sought to

• .
BUS 405, traveling from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem,

was commandeered by an Arab man who
plunged the vehicle over the embankment, killing
17 people and bringing the intifada closer
to home for Israelis.

directly intervene in Israeli
politics.
In the end, another national
unity government was formed in
Jerusalem and an Israel-
Diaspora calamity was averted.
For the time being. But despite
progress by representatives of
the three main seminaries of

American Jewry, the issue con-
tinues to seethe just below the
surface — another sign of the
still small but worrisome erosion
of support for, and identification

THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

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