SEPTEMBER 2015
Some 53 major American Jewish groups
issue a call for unity and recommitment to
American and Israeli security following the
Sept. 17 deadline for Congress to reject the
Iran nuclear deal. Overall, 19 of 28 Jewish
members of Congress support the deal,
which is vigorously opposed by Israeli Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the
American Israel Public Affairs Committee.
The Reconstructionist Rabbinical College
reverses a longstanding ban on accepting
rabbinical students with non-Jewish part-
ners. The move proves to be controversial,
leading seven rabbis and one Florida syna-
gogue to quit the movement in January in
response.
The Palestinian flag is raised at U.N. head-

quarters in New York for the first time. The
move follows a 119-8 vote of the General
Assembly on Sept. 10 to allow the flag at the
headquarters. Israel and the United States
are among the dissenters, along with Canada
and Australia.

OCTOBER 2015
The Jewish Council for Public Affairs
calls on Jewish groups to lobby for official
American recognition of the Armenian
genocide. Though most historians say
the killing or deportation of 1.5 mil-
lion Armenians by Turkish forces during
World War I constitutes a genocide, many
American Jewish groups — including the
Anti-Defamation League and the American
Israel Public Affairs Committee — had

previously declined to do so for fear of harm-
ing Israel’s alliance with Turkey. In May,
the ADL’s new chief, Jonathan Greenblatt,
writes in a blog post that the massacre of
Armenians was “unequivocally genocide.”
An Israeli couple is killed in the West
Bank while driving with four of their six
children. Eitam and Naama Henkin, both in
their 30s, are killed while returning to their
home settlement of Neria. Their children are
unharmed. In June, four Palestinians are sen-
tenced to life in prison for the killings.
Pope Francis meets Jewish leaders in
Rome to mark the 50th anniversary of the
Nostra Aetate, the landmark declaration that
rejected collective Jewish guilt for the killing
of Christ and paved the way for improved
Jewish-Catholic relations. In the meeting

in St. Peter’s Square, Francis declares: “Yes
to the rediscovery of the Jewish roots of
Christianity. No to anti-Semitism.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu draws fire for claiming the mufti
of Jerusalem gave Hitler the idea to exter-
minate the Jews at a 1941 meeting. “Hitler
didn’t want to exterminate the Jews at the
time; he wanted to expel the Jews. And Haj
Amin al-Husseini went to Hitler and said,
‘If you expel them, they’ll all come here,’”
Netanyahu said. Amid an outcry, Netanyahu
modifies his statement, emphasizing that
Hitler bore responsibility for the Holocaust.
Palestinian rioters set fire to Joseph’s
Tomb, a Jewish holy site in the West Bank,
amid continuing Israeli-Palestinian unrest.
The violence began in September follow-

Palestinians singing and waving national flags in the
West Bank city of Ramallah after viewing a televised
speech by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud
Abbas at the U.N. General Assembly, Sept. 30, 2015.

Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish
Organizations head Malcolm Hoenlein speaking on
the Voice of Israel radio station in Jerusalem, Feb. 11,
2015, about Iran nuclear deal. (YouTube)

Naama and Rabbi Eitam Henkin, who were killed by four members of
a Hamas cell

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