world

JANUARY 2013
Video emerges from 2010 of Egyptian
President Mohamed Morsi — then a
leader of the Muslim Brotherhood — call-
ing Jews "bloodsuckers" and "descendants
of apes and pigs:' Morsi tells U.S. senators
that he gets bad press because "certain
forces" control the media.
President Obama nominates Jacob Lew,
his chief of staff and an Orthodox Jew
who frequently serves as an intermediary
with Jewish groups, to be secretary of the
Treasury Department.
Benjamin Netanyahu wins reelection
as Israel's prime minister, but his Likud-
Yisrael Beiteinu faction suffers significant
losses at the polls, falling to 31 seats. The

big winners are two newcomer parties:
Yair Lapid's centrist, domestic-focused
Yesh Atid, which comes in second with
19 Knesset seats, and Naftali Bennett's
nationalist Jewish Home, which wins 12
seats. Both later opt to join Netanyahu's
coalition government, which takes nearly
two months to assemble.
Iran and Argentina sign an agreement
to form an independent commission to
investigate the 1994 bombing of the AMIA
Jewish community center in Buenos Aires,
which killed 85 people and was blamed
on Iran. Argentinian and American Jews
denounce the agreement as a farce. Iran's
parliament has yet to sign off on the pact.
Amid concerns that Syrian President

Bashar Assad may be transferring chemi-
cal weapons to Hezbollah, Israeli planes
bomb a Syrian weapons transport on the
Lebanese border. It is one of several Israeli
strikes in Syrian territory during the year.

FEBRUARY 2013
Ed Koch, the pugnacious former New York
City mayor whose political imprimatur
was eagerly sought by Republicans and
Democrats, dies at 88 of congestive heart
failure. At his funeral, a cast of political
luminaries remembers him as a friend of
Israel and the Jewish people.
Bulgaria affirms that Hezbollah was
behind the attack in Burgas in July 2012
that killed six people, including five

DECEMBER

Israelis. The finding adds to pressure
on the European Union to recognize
Hezbollah as a terrorist entity. After con-
cerns are expressed in the ensuing months
that Bulgarian officials are backing away
from their assertions, Bulgaria's foreign
minister reassures Israel on the attack's
one-year anniversary that Bulgaria still
holds Hezbollah responsible.
The Australian Broadcasting Corp. iden-
tifies a man known as "Prisoner X," who
hanged himself in a maximum-security
Israeli prison in 2010, as Australian-Israeli
citizen Ben Zygier. Zygier is said to have
worked for the Mossad.

5773 continued on page 96

President Obama

speaking with

Jacob Lew on

the Colonnade of

the White House

in 2010. Lew

was nominated

as Treasury

secretary on

Jan. 10, 2013.

FEBRUARY

JANUARY

Yesh Atid party

leader Yair Lapid

hugging Jewish

Home party chief

Naftali Bennett

following Lapid's

first speech at

the Knesset, Feb.

11, 2013.

Former Mayor Ed Koch wearing a

tallit and sitting with Rabbi Marc

Schneier at Park East Synagogue

following prayer services on the

morning after his defeat in the

mayoral primary to David M.

Dinkins, Sept. 12, 1989.

August 29 • 2013

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