| Jewish Geography |

5776: The Year in Review

By Binyamin Rose | September 28, 2016

GAME CHANGERS From Bernie to Pollard Jihad to the Ozone Brexit to Zika this Jewish year has run the gamut of game-changing events and phenomena

It's always a classic. And it's that time of year again.

Looking back at some of the key people places phenomena episodes and news that have characterized a tumultuous 5776 we look forward to good news in 5777.

Jewish World

NOT QUITE HOME FREE Jonathan Pollard won his release from prison in November after serving 30 years for spying for Israel but his fight for real freedom is still being litigated in court. Pollard’s attorneys are appealing to end the onerous parole provisions that keep him under virtual house arrest in hisManhattan apartment from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. and force him to wear a GPS tracking device that inhibits his ability to observe Shabbos.

NEWPORT BESTS NEW YORK Location is normally the critical factor in real estate but that didn’t deter aNew York congregation from staking its claim to the Touro Synagogue inNewportRhode IslandAmerica’s oldest Jewish house of worship. In May after a four-year legal battle a federal judge awarded custody to the Newport-based group. Touro was dedicated on Chanukah eve 1763 by some 30 Jewish families mainly fromSpain andPortugal. George Washington visited there in 1790 exchanging letters with community leaders and giving his blessings toAmerica’s Jewish community.

BDS GOES BALLISTIC Israel’s UN Ambassador Danny Danon has called BDS “the 21st Century incarnation of an old disease: anti-Semitism.” While the Boycott-Divestment-Sanctions movement has caused little economic harm toIsrael it has taken its toll in the court of public opinion mainly on college campuses and within academic and professional organizations. The goal of BDS is insidious: to turn the next generation of decision-makers into anti-Israel activists who will seek to undermineIsrael politically economically and culturally.

BIBI AND THE MUFTI Right after the “Knife Intifada” broke out after Succos Prime Minister Netanyahu sharpened his sword. Explaining the roots of present-day Palestinian incitement Bibi pointed a finger at the World War II-era Mufti of Jerusalem assigning him a co-conspiratorial role with Adolph Hitler in the Holocaust. A historical debate turned hysterical with criticism raining down on Bibi from all quarters including Yad Vashem and German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Historians worldwide debated and counter-debated Netanyahu’s talking points for weeks.

A MARK OF CAIN The European Commission termed it an interpretive notice.Israel called it a boycott. In either case European consumers were about to face wordier labels on products originating in landsIsrael captured during the Six Day War. Products such as Yarden Golan and Gamla wines were to bear a label reading: “product from the Golan Heights (Israeli settlement)”; Medjoul dates from theJordan RiverValley would bear the words “product fromWest Bank (Israeli settlement).” Only a small percentage of Israeli exports were affected by the EC’s January decision but many farmers were forced to scramble for new export markets.

VATICAN SOFTENS UP On the 50th anniversary in late October of the issuance of the “Nostra Aetate” the church edict that finally absolved the Jews of blame for the crucifixion of Christianity’s savior theVatican’s Commission for Religious Relations with Jews formally dropped its doctrine that called on the Catholic Church to convert Jews. The reversal was meant to end centuries of religious coercion and persecution. The church instead called on Catholics to work together with Jews to fight anti-Semitism.

Israel and Middle East

AVIGDOR’S DEFENSIVE SHIELD The much maligned and often misunderstood Avigdor Lieberman rolled the political dice trading a safe cabinet seat as foreign minister to warm the opposition benches. It proved a shrewd maneuver when a cabinet shakeup in May ousted Moshe Yaalon as defense minister in favor of Lieberman. Despite initially striking terror in their hearts the IDF and the professional staff at the defense ministry warmed to Lieberman acknowledging his quick grasp of the issues and personnel matters and for developing a rapport with Ashton Carter hisUS counterpart on his firstUS visit as defense minister.

THE OLDEST BATTLEGROUND Little has changed since Biblical days when each of four ancient kingdoms demonstrated the importance of the Golan by assigning their own name to it. TodayIsrael keeps watch on as many as 150 independent rebel groups including ISIS Hezbollah and the al-Qaeda affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra all positioned along 80% of its border withSyria.Iran has dispatched some of its top military commanders to supervise its own interests. As the Syrian Civil War grinds on Israel watches warily to see if its enemies turn next to the Golan.

AT KNIFEPOINT Some people call it lone-wolf terror. Others say there is no such animal. Call it what you may the latest cycle of premeditated Palestinian violence against Israeli civilians began over Succos and took several months to run its course. Some 39 Israelis and 2 Americans were killed in terror attacks. All in all the “knife intifada” was deadly with 51 shootings 147 stabbings 30 car rammings one bus bombing and many roadside explosives and rocks hurled at Jews — mainly in Judea and Samaria. But the terror also kept residents of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv on edge and on constant alert. ruth… it sounds like a cliché right? Like the coach who instructs the hitter to That’s truth and if with that you work backward.

BACKS TO THE WALL The Kosel was redeemed from the Arabs 49 years ago but for the past 27 years various Jewish groups have battled for control. In the past year conservative and reform groups ramped up their efforts to hold sway teaming up with domestic and foreign NGOs and a sympathetic leftist media. The government caved to their pressure and agreed to dedicate an egalitarian space for non-Orthodox prayer. Chareidi protests stalled the plan but withIsrael’s Supreme Court pressuring the government to implement the plan the coalition appears just weeks away from its next crisis as the new year begins.

MISSING IN ACTION Old wounds were reopened in late June when the Knesset held a hearing on whether to compel the Israel State Archives to unseal classified documents relating to the disappearance of anywhere from 1500 to 5000 Sephardic children mainly Yemenite toddlers during the early 1950s. While some people remain convinced of a government conspiracy to kidnap Yemenite children and hand them over for adoption to Ashkenazi families others contend that high rates of infant mortality among Yemenites and lack of organized record-keeping in the early days of statehood are the more likely explanation.

THE ORTHODOX ARE COMING Aliyah hit a 12-year high with 30000 olim entering the country in 2015 a trend that continued in 2016. Increases in aliyah were posted from France (10%) Ukraine (16%) Russia (40%) and Eastern Europe (25%). While the North American numbers held steady in the range of 4 000 per year Nefesh B’Nefesh reported that some 70% of new families from North America are Orthodox as are 40% of the young single olimages 18 to 25. rticle 2 truth… it sounds like a cliché right? Like the coach who instructs the hitter to ‘hit That’s truth and if with that you work backward.

The Americas

YEAR OF THE MAVERICKS Disenchanted Republicans handed an upset victory in presidential primaries to real estate mogul and reality TV star Donald Trump while a goodly percentage of Democrats expressed their disaffection with the status quo by “feeling theBern.” Bernie Sanders stayed in contention all the way to the convention floor against an opponent the media had deemed inevitable. The 2016 presidential race now boils down to a contest between two highly unpopular candidates leaving Americans feeling leery about the country’s near-term prospects.

CUBA LIBRE President Obama infuriated political conservatives with his March meeting inHavana with Cuban dictator Raul Castro the first visit by aUS president toCuba since Calvin Coolidge in 1928. Critics say Obama obtained little of consequence in return for the gesture and that the communist government continues to harass and intimidate people who exercise their fundamental rights. Proponents of Obama’s visit viewed the diplomatic shunning ofCuba as an anachronism in a postcommunist world where the former Russian proxy no longer poses a military threat to theUS mainland.

PRIVACY IS OBSOLETE Even if you’re one of the people who won’t share your personal life on social media there are plenty of leakers who will happily do it for you. The “Panama Papers” leak in April lifted the veil of confidentiality from the financial affairs of the world’s rich and famous. WikiLeaks embarrassed the Democratic National Committee in July publishing a slew of hacked e-mails showing how the DNC’s top officials tilted the playing field to help Hillary Clinton win the presidential nomination. Hillary herself is skittish as WikiLeaks chief Julian Assange hints at the release of smoking gun e-mails that could sink her candidacy.

HOMEGROWN JIHAD Fifteen years after 9/11 radical Islamists don’t need planes to commit terror: They’ve got boots on the ground in middle-class American neighborhoods. Omar Mateen killed 50 people and wounded 53 more at anOrlando nightclub in June while a husband and wife team Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik massacred 14 people at a holiday office party inSan Bernardino California in December. One noteworthy stat for this year’s presidential campaign: Of the 364 individuals charged with jihadist terror in theUS since 9/11 289 were either US-born citizens naturalized citizens or legal residents. Just 20 were illegal residents or refugees.

BLACK POWER The Black Lives Matter group — founded in 2012 — made a giant leap from a hashtag on social media to a mass street protest movement. Their “Rise Up in October” demonstrations peaked in the first two weeks of July right before the political conventions when the group held 112 protests in 88 US cities. While many concur discrimination against blacks still exists in numerous spheres the protests conjure up memories of the 1960s race riots. Their injection of anti-Israeli and pro-Palestinian stances in what purports to be a domestic civil rights movement is cause for further concern.

MAKING AMERICA GREAT AGAIN Sports has a way of uniting or at least distracting Americans from the political polarization that plagues the nation. The US may be racking up a trade deficit with China at the rate of $1 billion a day but at the Rio Olympics it was China that suffered a shortfall. America’s total of 121 medals — 46 gold — left China (70 medals 26 gold) in the dust. For the first time American women won more medals (61) than American men (55) with 5 more coming in mixed events. US women accounted for 27 of America’s 46 gold medals. Swimmer Michael Phelps is now the most medaled athlete in Olympic history (28).

Eurasia and Africa

SHAKY AT THE HELM If Recep Tayyip Erdogan once had pretensions of becoming the leader of the Muslim world today he is happy to hang onto power in Turkey after a surviving a July coup. Erdogan’s domestic woes will tie his hands from becoming too adventurous abroad. To remain in power he will have to boost defenses against a spiraling number of mass-casualty terror attacks fend off a growing enemies list internally and along his borders and prop up a tanking lira and government bond rating that fell to junk status amid a drop in per capita income for the average Turk to less than $10 000 per year. His one bright spot: the rapprochement with Israel. It will help him retain US support but diminishes his status with hard-line Muslim allies he once hoped to lead.

CITIES ON EDGE As the German government warns citizens to stockpile food and water in case of a terror attack or catastrophe major terror attacks rocked Paris (November) Brussels (March) and Nice (July). Pessimists say the worst is yet to come. Optimists say terror deaths in Europe are close to a historic low. Datagraver a Dutch company tracking European terror from 1970 to 2016 notes that terror attacks have tripled since 2004. But the frequency and numbers of casualties are nowhere near the 1970s or even an early 1990s spike when a variety of Basque German Italian Irish and neo-Nazi terrorists perpetrated 800 to 1 000 attacks per year.

THE RIGHT’S MIGHT It’s no false alarm. In May Austrians came within 31000 votes of electing Norbert Hofer its first far-right head of state since 1945. In Germany the AfD (Alternative for Germany) may not hold seats in the Bundestag but is well represented in regional governments. The French National Front holds 21 out of France’s 74 seats in the European Parliament. Far-right parties made similarly strong showings in Poland Sweden Holland and Denmark in the past year amid a migrant crisis sluggish economic growth and growing disillusionment with the EU.

BREXIT STAGE RIGHT Britons voted with their feet in July to exit the EU pulling the rug out from David Cameron’s reign as prime minister and catapulting a surprise candidate Theresa May Britain’s second woman prime minister. But the potential fallout from the vote is looming large. More than half of theUK’s 18 to 24-year-olds and some 27% of the total population fear Brexit may cost them their jobs at some point. Two months after the vote most Brits say they their new government is deliberately keeping them in the dark as to the real pros and cons of their newfound independence.

THE MORE THE MERRIER At 1.38 billion people and counting China’s population is set for a great leap forward now that the communist government officially ended China’s one-child per family policy first instituted in 1980. What sparked the change of heart? Two demographic problems. One is an aging population. The other is China’s version of the shidduchcrisis. During the past two generations when couples were only allowed one child many took steps to predetermine that child’s gender. Today men outnumber women by 20-million and some 33% of both men and women aged 25 to 29 are unmarried.

EBOLA ERADICATED After 11500 deaths and more than 29000 cases The World Health Organization (WHO) in January declared West Africa free from the Ebola virus. The latest outbreak of the epidemic hit the continent in 2013 beginning in Guinea and spreading to Liberia and Sierra Leone. Health officials credit the eradication to a combination of tight surveillance tracking infected people timely interventions from on-site case managers portable laboratory services safe burials and education.

Discoveries and Wonders

CURING MELANOMA Researchers at Tel Aviv University and Heidelberg’s Cancer Center solved the mystery of deadly melanoma announcing they discovered how the cancer spreads and a method for stopping it before it reaches the metastatic stage. The drug SB202190 inhibits the spread; U0126 works even after. How long before it’s available? Dr. Ronen Brenner head of the Oncology Institute at Wolfson Medical Center in Holon who worked on the research project likened it to an initial discovery of oil deposits. It will take time to extract the research and make it commercially available.

GLASSY-EYED Why does a person cross China’s Zhangjiajie Grand Canyon bridge? To get to the other side? Nah. To look down through the bridge’s glass bottom 984 feet below. If that’s not scary enough bungee jumping and zip line activities are also allowed. Israeli architect Haim Dotan designed this wonder a record-breaking 1290 feet long paved with 99 panes of triple-layered transparent glass.

THE WET PLANET If you can’t find intelligent life on other planets the next best thing to discover is water. Playing it safe NASA had long dubbed the possible discovery of water on the red planet “recurring slope lineae” or “seasonal water flows.” But hydro skeptics threw in the towel this year when the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter found evidence of water running down crater walls. But from where? Melting subsurface ice? Surface salts absorbing atmospheric water vapor? Questions to keep NASA scientists busy until humans go there maybe in 2030.

A WEAKER ZIKA It was a new partisan low when Congress couldn’t even agree on a bill for bug spray to wipe out Zika before going on vacation. The Zika-carrying mosquitoes stayed on the job and states were on their own until the White House shifted funds from the Ebola budget. The steamy South is most at risk but New York and New Jersey aren’t taking chances spending $25 million on Zika prevention. Experts predict 80 cases with symptoms in Florida by September. Expectant mothers are warned to take precautions.

ISRAELI UNDERGROUND In April Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu announced a breakthrough technology to detect underground tunnels. Details are top secret but we suspect the technology is a type of Ground Penetrating Radar bouncing electromagnetic waves off subsurface structures like the Foliage-Penetrating RadarIsrael is selling toIndia for monitoring terrorist infiltration on thePakistan border. Hamas blamed several fatal tunnel collapses on Israeli sabotage.Israel didn’t say. Probably just a coincidence.

OZONE BOOST Not since we heard the sky wasn’t falling have we heard such good news: The hole in the ozone layer is shrinking. The hole which lets in potentially harmful ultraviolet rays is almost 2.5 million square miles smaller than in 2000 half the area of theUS. What happened? Scientists think we did it by outlawing hairspray and other sources of ozone-eating chlorine in the 1987 Montreal Protocol. They say it was worth the messy hair. rticle 2 truth… it sounds like a cliché right? Like the coach who instructs the hitter to ‘hit That’s truth and if with that you work backward.

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Jewish World

Israel and Middle East

The Americas

Eurasia and Africa

Discoveries and Wonders

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