world
time. Reaction to his proposal is mixed.
Salam Fayyad, the Palestinian Authority
prime minister who was lauded for
his technocratic approach toward state
building in the West Bank, resigns. He is
replaced in June by university president
Rami Hamdallah, who announces after
two weeks on the job that he is quitting.
Rabbi Michael Broyde, a prominent
legal scholar in the Modern Orthodox
community and professor at Emory
University in Atlanta, is forced to step
down from a leading religious court after
admitting that he systematically used a
fake identity in scholarly journals. The
admission followed a report by The Jewish
Channel exposing the ruse.
Bret Stephens, a former editor in chief of
the Jerusalem Post and now deputy edito-
rial page editor of the Wall Street Journal,
wins the Pulitzer Prize for commentary.
The Museum of the History of Polish
Jews opens in Warsaw.
The Jewish Museum of Casablanca
reopens following a major renovation
funded by the Moroccan government. The
renovation is part of a broad effort led by
Morocco's king to restore Jewish heritage
sites in the country, including an ancient
synagogue in Fez and dozens of former
Jewish schools.
MAY 2013
Following complaints from pro-Israel
APRIL
groups, the Newseum in Washington,
D.C., cancels a planned honor for two slain
Palestinian cameramen employed by a
Hamas affiliate.
Eric Garcetti, a veteran L.A. city coun-
cilman, becomes the first elected Jewish
mayor of Los Angeles. With his victory,
America's three largest cities boast Jewish
mayors.
The Claims Conference is embroiled
in controversy after the public learns
that officials at the organization failed
to adequately follow up on allegations of
fraud in 2001, missing an early chance
to stop what turned into a $57 million
scheme. The disclosure comes during the
trial of the scheme's mastermind, Semen
Left: An illustration of Natan
Sharansky's proposal, which will
expand the Western Wall and create
a permanent egalitarian space in the
Robinson's Arch area.
Entrance to the Museum of the
History of Polish Jews (right) and the
Western Wall
Men
Monument to the Ghetto Heroes (left)
Women
MAY
JULY
German officials lay a wreath at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem as
Egyptian protesters hold an anti-Morsi poster in
Claims Conference officials look on, May 2013.
Tahrir Square in Cairo shortly before the military's
ouster of President Mohamed Morsi, July 3, 2013.
Domnitser, who is found guilty. In July, the
Claims Conference board agrees to some
outside input in formulating plans for its
future but votes to reelect its embattled
chairman, Julius Berman, who oversaw a
botched probe in 2001 into the allegations.
A 13-year-old Indian-American boy,
Arvind Mahankali, spells the Yiddish-
derived word "knaidel" correctly to win the
2013 Scripps National Spelling Bee.
JUNE 2013
U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg dies at age 89
after a long and accomplished career advo-
cating for Jewish issues.
The Canadian Jewish News decides to
abort a plan announced in April to stop
printing the newspaper.
Yeshivat Maharat, a women's seminary
started by Rabbi Avi Weiss in 2009, gradu-
ates its first class of Orthodox women
clergy known as maharats.
Liberal Jewish groups hail the Supreme
Court decision striking down California's
ban on gay marriage, while Orthodox
groups express muted disappointment.
Israel's Ashkenazi chief rabbi, Yona
Metzger, is arrested on suspicion of fraud
and money laundering.
JULY 2013
In a letter announcing his retirement,
Yeshiva University Chancellor Norman
Lamm issues an apology for mishandling
sex abuse allegations decades earlier
against faculty members at Y.U.'s high
school for boys. Days later, several ex-Y.U.
students file a $380 million lawsuit against
the university.
Three campers at the Goldman Union
Camp Institute near Indianapolis are
injured in a lightning strike. A few days
later, a Jewish camp counselor is killed
by a falling tree at Camp Tawonga, a
California camp located near Yosemite
National Park.
Egypt's army deposes President
Mohamed Morsi, overthrowing the coun-
try's first democratically elected leader.
The Obama administration stops short of
calling the action a coup, avoiding an auto-
matic cutoff in U.S. aid to Egypt. Morsi
had become deeply unpopular among
liberal and secular Egyptians but retained
deep-rooted support among members of
his Muslim Brotherhood.
Israel's ambassador to the United States,
Michael Oren, announces he will return
to Israel after four years in the position.
He is to be replaced by Ron Dermer, a
senior adviser to Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu. Both ambassadors
are American born.
Portugal enacts a law of return to make
citizenship available to Jewish descen-
dants of Portuguese Sephardic Jews. The
move is intended to address the mass
expulsion of Jews from Portugal in the
16th century.
❑
IN
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