57
76

the year in
review

The United Nations

recognizes Yom

Kippur as an official

holiday. Starting

in 2016, no official

meetings will take

place on the Jewish

Day of Atonement

at the international

body’s New York

headquarters.

102 September 29 • 2016

continued from page 101

ing an Israeli raid on the Temple
Mount that uncovered a cache of
weapons, which led to clashes that
spread to the West Bank.
Portuguese officials approve the
naturalization of a Panamanian
descendant of Sephardic Jews,
the first individual to receive
Portuguese citizenship under a
2013 law that entitled such indi-
viduals to repatriation. Days earlier,
Spain approved the granting of
citizenship to 4,302 descendants
of Spanish Jews exiled during the
Spanish Inquisition under a similar
law.

NOVEMBER 2015
Jonathan Pollard, the former
American Naval intelligence ana-
lyst convicted of spying for Israel,
is freed from federal prison after
30 years. Under the terms of his
parole, Pollard is prohibited from
traveling to Israel, though he offers
to renounce his American citizen-
ship in order to live there.
New York State Assembly
Speaker Sheldon Silver is found
guilty of corruption. An Orthodox
Jew who wielded vast power as one
of the New York state government’s
proverbial “three men in a room,”
Silver was convicted of using his
position to win millions through
various kickback schemes and no-
show jobs. Silver is sentenced to 12
years in jail in May.
Two Jewish teens are found
guilty of the murder of
Mohammad Abu Khdeir, a
Palestinian teenager who was
abducted and burned to death in
the Jerusalem Forest in 2014. The
teens are not identified because
they were minors at the time of the
crime.
American yeshivah student Ezra
Schwartz, 18, is killed in a shoot-
ing in the West Bank. Schwartz,
of Sharon, Mass., is memorialized
by the New England Patriots, his
favorite team, with a moment of
silence prior to their Nov. 23 game
against the Buffalo Bills.
F. Glenn Miller Jr., the white
supremacist found guilty of kill-
ing three people at two suburban
Kansas City Jewish institutions,
is sentenced to death. Miller was
convicted of capital murder in
September.
The European Union approves
guidelines for the labeling of prod-
ucts from West Bank settlements.
Under the guidelines, goods pro-
duced in the West Bank, eastern
Jerusalem or the Golan Heights
must be labeled. Israel’s Foreign
Ministry condemns the move.

The Anti-Defamation League
reports a 30 percent jump in anti-
Israel activity on American college
campuses. According to the report,
more than 150 “explicitly anti-
Israel programs” have either taken
place or are scheduled to take
place on American campuses, an
increase from 105 the year before.
The Rabbinical Council of
America adopts a policy pro-
hibiting the ordination or hiring
of women rabbis. The policy,
the result of a vote of the main
Orthodox rabbinical group’s mem-
bership, proscribes the usage of
any title implying rabbinic status,
specifically naming “maharat” —
an acronym meaning “female spiri-
tual, legal and Torah leader” used
by Yeshivat Maharat, a New York
school ordaining Orthodox women
as clergy.
Six men are sentenced for
their roles in a plot to violently
coerce a man to grant his wife a
religious divorce; most are given
prison terms. In December, two
rabbis involved in the scheme are
sentenced to jail time, including
70-year-old Mendel Epstein, who
receives a 10-year term. In all,
10 people, three of them rabbis, are
convicted for their roles in kidnap-
ping and torturing recalcitrant
husbands for a fee.

DECEMBER 2015
Israel arrests several suspects in
connection with a July firebombing
in the West Bank town of Duma
that killed three members of a
Palestinian family, including an
18-month-old baby. The suspects
later allege they were tortured by
the Israeli security agency Shin
Bet, which denies the claim. Weeks
later, video emerges showing
friends of the suspects celebrat-
ing the killings at a wedding in
Jerusalem, drawing condemnations
from across the political spectrum.
The United Nations recog-
nizes Yom Kippur as an official
holiday. Starting in 2016, no official
meetings will take place on the
Jewish Day of Atonement at the
international body’s New York
headquarters, and Jewish employ-
ees there will be able to miss work
without using vacation hours.
Other religious holidays that enjoy
the same status are Christmas,
Good Friday, Eid al-Fitr and Eid
al-Adha.
An Orthodox homosexual “heal-
ing” group is ordered by a New
Jersey court to cease operations.
Jews Offering New Alternatives
for Healing, or JONAH, must

1

2

3

4

5

6

1: Pope Francis looks on as a rabbi and imam
shake hands at an interfaith service in New York.
2: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during
a news conference at the Foreign Ministry in
Jerusalem, Oct. 15, 2015. 3: Jonathan Pollard
is freed from federal prison after 30 years. 4:
Friends of Ezra Schwartz grieving over the coffin
of the American terror victim at a service at
Ben-Gurion Airport in Israel before the body
was repatriated to Boston for his funeral the
following day, Nov. 21, 2015. (Ben Sales) 5: The
Anti-Defamation League reports a 30 percent
jump in anti-Israel activity on American college
campuses. 6: Flames at Joseph’s Tomb near
Nablus following a fire set by Palestinian rioters,
Oct. 16, 2015. (Israel Radio)