YEAR IN REVIEW 5749 YEAR IN REVIEW

A MEZUZAH IN MOSCOW was dedicated at the opening of
Moscow's first government-recognized Jewish community center
in February, a symbol of change in the USSR for Soviet Jews.

RR AND MANS
de COL TERRORIST

FRENCH JEWS protested the-first official visit of PLO leader
Yassir Arafat in May.

L
WOMEN PRAYING AT THE WESTERN WALL became an issue of religious controversy in Israel. At
times, the women were harrassed by some Orthodox Jews. Israel's highest court offered an interim
decision maintaining "acceptable practice" at the Wall.

castigated for failing to protect
its civilians.
There was a sense this sum-
mer that the center was failing
to hold in Israel, that the fringe
elements were taking over, that
civil war was a possibility.

Even Menachem Begin, the
once-forceful prime minister who
has disappeared from public
view, spoke out for the first
time in years to urge Jewish
citizens to maintain law and
order and not give in to their
feelings of anger and frustration
over the intifada.
But the war of wills between
Palestinians and Israelis crept
over the Green Line this year,

with an increasing number of
murders of Jews by Arabs and,
most dramatically, the deadly
takeover of a Jerusalem-bound
bus by an Arab fanatic who
seized the wheel, plunging it
over an embankment, killing 17
innocent passengers.
Israeli tolerance was put to

the test by such deeds, and even
liberal Knesset members were
calling for more sophisticated
measures to identify Arabs,
such as identity cards.
In a new twist, Palestinians
were killing each other, with
dozens of moderates murdered
by supporters of the intifada.
The murders were believed to
be directed by the PLO, the
same PLO that pledged to step

THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

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