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the year in
review

1

2

3

4

1: Morley Safer, a 46-year veteran of the CBS
newsmagazine 60 Minutes, dies at 84, a week after
retiring from the show. 2: Medics wheel Hallel
Yaffa Ariel, 13, who was stabbed by a Palestinian
attacker in the bedroom of her Kiryat Arba home,
into the emergency room of the Shaare Zedek
Medical Center in Jerusalem, June 30, 2016.
She died of multiple stab wounds. 3: Debbie
Wasserman Schultz steps down as leader of the
Democratic National Committee.
4: Aly Raisman poses after winning a silver medal
in the women’s individual all-around competition
at the Rio Olympics, Aug. 11, 2016.

MAY 2016
Bernie Sanders names
three prominent crit-
ics of Israel to the
committee charged
with formulating the
Democratic Party
platform: Rep. Keith
Ellison, D-Minn., the
first Muslim elected
to Congress; James
Zogby, the president
of the Arab American
Institute; and Cornel
West, a philosopher and supporter of
the BDS movement. Days later, Sanders
releases a statement emphasizing that
while he supports Israel’s right to live in
peace, lasting peace will not come with-
out “fair and respectful treatment of the
Palestinian people.”
In an announcement timed to the
annual independence celebrations in
Israel, the nation’s Central Bureau of
Statistics reports the population has
risen to 8.52 million residents, a tenfold
increase over the 806,000 in 1948 at the
time of Israel’s founding.
Britain’s Labour Party launches an
investigation into anti-Semitism within
the party one day after the suspen-
sion of former London Mayor Ken
Livingstone, who said Adolf Hitler was
a Zionist because he advocated mov-
ing Europe’s Jews to Israel.
Morley Safer, a 46-year veteran of the
CBS newsmagazine 60 Minutes, dies at
84, a week after retiring from the show.
Safer, the winner of 12 Emmy Awards,
helped turn American public opinion
against the Vietnam War with his cover-
age of U.S. atrocities.
Sheldon Adelson, the casino mag-
nate and major backer of Republican
candidates, endorses Donald Trump
for the presidency. In an op-ed in the
Washington Post, Adelson cites Trump’s
executive experience and the threat of
a “third term” for President Obama if
Hillary Clinton is elected. Adelson plans
to spend more than ever on the 2016
presidential election, even in excess
of $100 million, the New York Times
reports.
Julia Ioffe, a reporter who wrote a
critical profile of Donald Trump’s wife,
Melania, is deluged with anti-Semitic
phone calls and messages on social
media, including a cartoon of a Jew being
executed. Ioffe files a police complaint
about the threats.
An 11-minute video showing what
appears to be a Chasidic school principal
sexually abusing a young boy refocuses
attention on sex abuse in the haredi
Orthodox community. The video, which
prompts an investigation by state police,
was filmed secretly from an overhead
camera and posted on social media
before being removed.

JUNE 2016
Rabbi Maurice Lamm, the author of The

106 September 29 • 2016

Jewish Way in Death and Mourning and
several other notable Jewish books, dies.
First issued in 1969, the book is con-
sidered a seminal work on the topic of
Jewish death and mourning rituals.
British Labour Party leader Jeremy
Corbyn, already under fire over allega-
tions of rampant anti-Semitism in his
party, draws more criticism for seem-
ing to compare Israel and the Islamic
State terrorist group. “Our Jewish friends
are no more responsible for the actions of
Israel or the Netanyahu government than
our Muslim friends are for those of vari-
ous self-styled Islamic states or organiza-
tions,” Corbyn said in remarks following
the release of a report on anti-Semitism
within Labour. The report found the
party is not overrun by anti-Semitism
but that there is an “occasionally toxic
atmosphere.”
Hallel Yaffa Ariel, 13, is stabbed to
death while sleeping in her bed in the
West Bank settlement of Kiryat Arba
by a Palestinian teenager. The attacker,
Muhammad Nasser Tarayrah, had
jumped the settlement fence and entered
the sleeping girl’s bedroom. He later is
shot and killed by civilian guards.
Israel and Turkey sign a reconciliation
agreement six years after relations were
cut off following an Israeli raid on the
Mavi Marmara, a Turkish ship attempt-
ing to break Israel’s blockade of Gaza.
Nine Turkish citizens were killed in the
raid. Under the agreement, Israel will
create a $20 million humanitarian fund
as compensation to the families of the
Mavi Marmara victims, which would not
be released until Turkey passes legislation
closing claims against the Israeli military
for the deaths.
Anti-Semitic incidents on American
college campuses nearly doubled in 2015,
the Anti-Defamation League reports. A
total of 90 incidents were reported on
60 college campuses in 2015, compared
with 47 incidents on 43 campuses in
2014. The ADL audit records a total of
941 anti-Semitic incidents in the United
States in 2015, an increase of 3 percent
over the previous year.

JULY 2016
Pope Francis visits Auschwitz, where he
prays in silent contemplation and meets
with Holocaust survivors. Francis also
visits the cell of Polish priest and saint
Maximilian Kolbe, who died at Auschwitz
after taking the place of a condemned
man. Francis is the third pope to visit the
camp, following the Polish-born John Paul
II in 1979 and Pope Benedict XVI in 2006.
Debbie Wasserman Schultz steps down
as leader of the Democratic National
Committee following the emergence
of emails showing senior DNC staffers
sought to undercut the campaign of Jewish
presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders. One
email, from Chief Financial Officer Brad
Marshall, alleges that Sanders is an athe-
ist and that it could be used against him.
Marshall resigns in August.

Bernie Sanders, the first Jew to win a
major party presidential primary, endorses
Hillary Clinton for president. At a rally in
New Hampshire, Sanders said he would
work with Clinton to keep Donald Trump
from being elected.
Goldie Michelson of Worcester, Mass.,
the oldest living American, dies at home at
the age of 113 and 11 months. Michelson,
the daughter of Russian Jewish parents,
immigrated with her family to Worcester
when she was 2.
Jared Kushner defends his father-in-law,
Republican presidential nominee Donald
Trump, from charges of anti-Semitism fol-
lowing Trump’s retweeting of an image of
Hillary Clinton with a six-pointed star
reminiscent of a Star of David over a back-
ground of dollar bills. The tweet is later
deleted. “I know that Donald does not at
all subscribe to any racist or anti-Semitic
thinking,” Kushner said.
Elie Wiesel, the Nobel Peace Prize laure-
ate, author, activist and Holocaust survi-
vor, dies at 87 of natural causes. Wiesel,
who wrote Night and The Jews of Silence,
was well-known internationally for his
books and as a leading voice of conscience.
Israel’s highest rabbinical court rejects a
conversion performed by a prominent
American rabbi Haskel Lookstein. The
conversion had been rejected originally
in April by a court in the Tel Aviv suburb
of Petach Tikvah. Lookstein, the former
rabbi of Kehilath Jeshurun, a tiny Modern
Orthodox synagogue on Manhattan’s
Upper East Side, also performed the con-
version of Ivanka Trump, the daughter of
Republican presidential nominee Donald
Trump.

AUGUST 2016
Esther Jungreis, a pioneer in the Jewish
outreach movement and founder of the
organization Hineni, dies at 80.
American gymnast Aly Raisman wins
three medals at the Rio Olympics, a gold
for the overall U.S. women’s team and two
individual silvers. Israel takes home two
medals at the games, both bronze in judo,
while American Jewish swimmer Anthony
Ervin at 35 becomes the oldest person to
win a gold medal in an individual swim-
ming event. The Rio games also pay trib-
ute to the 11 Israelis killed at the Munich
Olympics in 1972.
Fyvush Finkel, an Emmy Award-
winning actor who began his career per-
forming in the Yiddish theater, dies at 93.
The Movement for Black Lives adopts a
platform describing Israel as an “apartheid
state” and claims it perpetrates “geno-
cide” against the Palestinian people. The
group, a coalition of 50 organizations that
emerged from the Black Lives Matter
movement, is harshly criticized by Jewish
organizations.
Gene Wilder, a comedic actor who
played the title characters in the films
Young Frankenstein and Willy Wonka &
the Chocolate Factory, and also starred in
the Mel Brooks’ Western spoof Blazing
Saddles, dies at 83.

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