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.