year in review
continued from page 78
Alan Gross with
his wife Judy,
The European Parliament passes a resolution that supports, in prin-
ciple, recognition of a Palestinian state as part of peace talks with
Israel, in a 498-88 vote with 111 abstentions. Meanwhile, the General
Court of the European Union annuls Hamas' inclusion on a blacklist of
terrorist groups, saying the 2001 decision was based on press reports
and not legal reasoning.
attorney Scott
Gilbert, Rep.
Chris Van Hollen,
D-Md., Sen.
Patrick Leahy,
D-Vt., and Sen.
Jeff Flake, R-Ariz.
Alan Gross, a Jewish-American contractor for the U.S. government
who had spent five years in a Cuban prison for helping connect Cuban
Jews to the Internet, is released and returned to the United States as
part of a sweeping deal to restore diplomatic ties between Washington
and Havana. Gross subsequently thanks the American Jewish commu-
nity for helping secure his freedom.
watch television
on board a U.S.
government plane
headed back to
the U.S. as the
news breaks of
his release, Dec.
17, 2014.
DAN KITWOO D/G ETTY IMAG ES
Jewish immigration from France to Israel reaches an all-time record
of nearly 7,000 in 2014, more than doubling the French aliyah rate
in 2013 and far outstripping immigration to Israel from the United
States. Overall, immigration to Israel hits a 10-year high in 2014 with
approximately 26,500 new immigrants.
The Conservative movement youth group USY votes to relax rules
barring teenage board members from dating non-Jews. The change,
adopted at the group's annual convention in Atlanta, affects the 100 or
so teen officers who serve on USY's national board.
President Obama signs the 2014 United States-Israel Strategic
Partnership Act. The law, which unanimously passed the House and
Senate, declares Israel a "major strategic partner; upgrades the value
of American weapons stockpiles in Israel and grants the Jewish state
improved trade status.
At United Synagogue Youth's 2014
convention held in Atlanta on Dec.
21-25, the board voted to relax the
youth organization's ban on interfaith
dating.
As 2014 draws to a close, Israel's Central Bureau of Statistics announc-
es that the country's population grew by 2 percent in 2014, to 8.3 mil-
lion. Of them, 74.9 percent are counted as Jews, 20.7 percent as Arabs
and 4.3 percent as others.
People watch on TV in a cafe as police mobilize at
the hostage situation at Porte de Vincennes.
January 2015
Streit's announces it is closing its historic, six-story matzah factory
on New York's Lower East Side, where the company produced the
Passover staple for 90 years. It will relocate operations to New Jersey.
Four Jewish men are killed by an Islamic gunman during a hostage
siege at a kosher supermarket in Paris two days after a pair of Islamic
gunmen storm the Paris offices of a satirical newspaper, Charlie
Hebdo, killing 11. The supermarket gunman, Amedy Coulibaly, is
killed when police storm the Hyper Cacher market. Almost simulta-
neously, police kill the perpetrators of the Charlie Hebdo attack —
brothers Said and Cherif Kouachi, who were friends with Coulibaly
— at a printing plant just outside Paris. The events, which prompt a
massive anti-terrorism demonstration in Paris, stoke fears of French
Jews about their future in the country.
continued on page 82
80
September 10 • 2015
JEFF J. MITCHELL/GETTY IMAGE S
JTA, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, announces it is merging with
MyJewishLearning to create 70 Faces Media. The new organization's
three primary brands — the news and syndication portal JTA.org , the
Jewish encyclopedia MyJewishLearning.com and the parenting web-
site Kveller.com — are to remain distinct.
Demonstrators gather at the Place de la Nation square in Paris following a mass unity rally
protesting the recent terrorist attacks in the French capital, Jan. 11, 2015.