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Chairman of the Executives of the World Zionist Organization and of the Jewish Agency: Pinhas Sapir.

Alternate Chairman of the Executive of the WZO - Jewish Agency, American Section: Charlotte Jacobson.

Treasurer of the Jewish Agency: Arie Dulzin.

Chairman Settlement Department: Raanan Weitz.

Chairman Youth Aliyah Department:Yosef Klarman.

Chairman Immigration and Absorption: Pinhas Sapir, Joseph Almogi.

January 7: The 100,000th immigrant from the Soviet Union arrives. However, a growing number of immigrants from the USSR ostensibly bound for Israel drop out en route.

August 12: Pinhas Sapir, chairman of the Zionist Executive, Labor leader, and former minister of finance, dies at age 68.

After the Reconstruction of the Jewish Agency, the Knesset amends the Status Law, retroactively from 1971, adapting it to the new reality of the separation between the Jewish Agency and the WZO. The amendment does not affect the substance of the Law but lays down that both the WZO and the Jewish Agency enjoy the recognition and the status that had been granted in 1952 to the then united body, and that the Jewish Agency and the WZO themselves, rather than their Executive, shall constitute a legal person. In consequence of the separation the covenant for the joint body is replaced by two, almost identical documents, one for each body.

New immigrants in 1975: 20,028.

January 23: An agreement between Israel and the Common Market provides for the abolishment of import taxes on Israeli products in the Market countries from 1977 and vice-versa from 1989.

January 30: The Agranat Commission submits the final report of its findings to the government. The report will be classified for 30 years.

February 17: Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin visits the Golan Heights and states that the settlements there were not established in order to be evacuated on one day.

March 5 : Eight Fatah gunmen come ashore at Tel Aviv and occupy the small seafront Savoy Hotel. When Israeli troops attack, they detonate explosives. Three civilians, three Israeli soldiers, and seven terrorists are killed.

March 5-6: An attempt by a Gush Emunim group to establish an unauthorized settlement, Elon Moreh, is thwarted by the IDF.

March 24 : US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger's effort for a second Israeli-Egyptian agreement fail. The US blames Israel for the negotiations failure, and President Gerald R. Ford orders the reassessment of the US policy.

April 4: Egypt returns the bodies of 39 soldiers missing since the Yom Kippur War. In return, Israel releases "security prisoners".

April 13: A civil war between Christian and Muslim forces breaks out in Lebanon. PLO activities based in Lebanon heighten tensions between the two groups.

April 14: Israel unveils its domestically produced Kfir fighter plane to coincide with upcoming 27th anniversary Independence Day celebrations.

May: Seventy-six of the US Senate's then 99 members, write to President Ford implicitly rejecting the administration's attempts to blame Israel for the breakdown of negotiations with Egypt and explicitly opposing the withholding of American aid to Israel.

June 2: Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin announces that Israel will thin out its forces west of the Suez Canal by half upon the opening of the canal.

June 5: The Suez Canal is opened to traffic after a closure of eight years. Sadat announces that Egypt will demolish the results of "Zionist aggression" in the Golan Heights, Sinai, and Palestine and is determined to restore "stolen Arab rights".

June 15: A terrorist attack on Kfar Yuval, near the Lebanese border, prompts the Israel air force and artillery to fire at Palestinian targets in Lebanon.

June 17: The ministry of finance announces a policy of "creeping devaluation" at intervals of 2%. The first such step establishes the lira at IL 6,12 to the dollar.

June: US President Gerald R. Ford and Egypt's Anwar al-Sadat meet in Salzburg, Austria, to discuss the resumptions of negotiations for a Sinai accord with Israel. Sadat proposes that the Umm Khisheiba surveillance station be operated by US civilians rather than Israelis.

June: In Washington, DC., Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin has talks with President Ford and Secretary of State Kissinger about renewing negotiations for an Israeli-Egyptian accord.

July 4 : A bomb explosion in Jerusalem's Zion Square kills 14 and injures 72.

July 16: A conference of foreign ministers of Muslim states calls for the expulsion of Israel from the UN.

July 29: The Knesset passes a law for direct elections of municipal mayors and heads of local councils.

August 21: US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger initiates another round of shuttle diplomacy in the Middle East.

September 1 : As a result of Henry Kissinger's mediation, Egypt and Israel reach a second disengagement agreement.

September 3: The Knesset approves the withdrawal agreement by 70 to 43, with 7 abstentions.

September 4: A ceremonial signing of the Israeli-Egyptian agreement takes place in Geneva. The agreement is accompanied by a far-reaching American "memorandum of understanding". Washington commits itself not to treat with the PLO, it being a terrorist organization that does not recognize Israel's right to exist.

September 27: A relatively large devaluation of the Israeli lira is implemented, putting the exchange rate at IL 7 to the dollar. Simultaneously, the government imposes a freeze on prices.

September: Moshe Dayan and Egyptian Deputy Premier Hassan el-Tuhami hold a secret meeting in Morocco to discuss a possible peace treaty between Israel and Egypt.

October 21: The Hadassah Hospital on Mt. Scopus, completely rebuilt following the Six Day War, is opened after a closure of 27 years.

November 2 : The Greek freighter "Olympus" passes through the Suez Canal. It is the first time in more than 15 years that Israeli-bound cargo is allowed through the canal.

November 10: The UN General Assembly, by a vote of 72 to 35, with 32 abstentions, adopts Resolution 3379, which declares that Zionism is a "form of racism and racial discrimination." US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger declares that the "United States will ignore this vote." (Read more.)

November 13 : A terrorist bomb explosion on Jerusalem's Jaffa Road kills 7 and injures 42.

November 20: Palestinian gunmen infiltrate from Syria into the settlement of Ramat Magshimim on the Golan Heights, killing three yeshiva students and wounding two.

November 25: In a tragic air force accident in Sinai, an Israeli Hercules plane crashes into Mt. Halal, killing all 20 crew and passengers.

November 30: Israel hands over the oil fields at Abu Rudeis to intermediaries - the UN observer force and an Italian oil company - for return to Egypt.

December 1: The Elon Moreh affair continues. The government decides to evacuate the settlers. They refuse to evacuate voluntarily. After negotiations with Shimon Peres - Minister of Defense - and Intelligence Adviser and former Likud member of the Knesset Ariel Sharon (a believer in substantial Jewish settlement on the West Bank and in the annexation of most of it to Israel) the Gush Emunim settlers are allowed to move (temporarily) into an Israeli army camp. Later, the settlers moved to Mount Kabir, east of Nablus. From there, they are never forced to withdraw. Rabin, who regards Gush Emunim as a threat to democracy, regrets until his death that he surrenders to the Gush over Elon Moreh.

December 5 : The new town of Ma'aleh Adumim is established in the West Bank as a satellite suburb of Jerusalem. It is not intended as a messianic thrust into the West Bank, but, is considered a strategic necessity.

December 6: The UN General Assembly reaches a decision by 84 to 17 with 27 abstentions to demand that Israel return the territories it occupied in the Six Day War. If not, sanctions will be applied against it.

David Vital, Israeli historian, writes "The Origins of Zionism".

The Jewish National and University Library in Jerusalem exhibits "The Portuguese Jews of Amsterdam in the 17th century" to mark the 300th anniversary of the opening of the Portuguese synagogue in Amsterdam.

Yeshayhu Leibowitz, Israeli scientist and philosopher, publishes "Judaism, the Jewish People, and the State of Israel", a collection of articles and lectures describing his "unorthodox orthodoxy". He criticizes traditional authorities responsible for the religious law and the Israeli government and its foreign policy. Emigrating to Palestine from Europe in 1935, he has seven doctoral degrees and is considered an intellectual giant as well as one of Israel's most controversial personalities.

Inflation in 1975 remains at 39,9%.

January: The Vatican publishes Guidelines and Suggestions for Relations with Judaism, designed to implement the Vatican II Declaration on the Jews. The guidelines surpass the declaration and clearly reject widespread teaching that Judaism is a rigid religion calling for neither love of God nor love of men. The guidelines state the history of Judaism did not end with the destruction of Jerusalem but continued to develop, creating new religious values. The document calls on Catholics to fight antisemitism.

June 30: A month before rhe signature of the Helsinki Agreement, 17 refusniks (among them Ida Nudel, Anatoly Sharansky, Alexander Lunts, Benjamin Fain, Vitaly Rubin, Mark Azbel, Victor Brailovsky, Dina Beilina, Lev Ovsishcher and Yefim Davidovich) meet United States Senators.

July 30: The third and final stage of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe is opened in Helsinki, with Leonid Brezhnev representing the Soviet Union, Gerald Ford the United States and Harold Wilson the United Kingdom. In all, 35 countries are represented: The United States, Canada, and all the countries of Europe except Albania. The so-called "Basket-Three" cover cooperation in humanitarian and other fields, agreeing to the reunification of divided families. Of central importance to all refusniks is the sentence in the preamble that the participating States will act "in conformity" with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948.
At the signing of the Helsinki Accords on 1 August, the Soviet Union has endorsed, with all the solemnity of an international agreement, the right of every individual "to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country."

December: Elena Bonner, wife of Andrei Sakharov, Soviet dissident leader, accepts his Nobel Peace Prize. He is refused an exit visa to Oslo. She reads his remarks, which include the condemnation of UN Resolution 3379.

December: Leaders of the Jewish community of Brazil meet with President Ernesto Geisel after Brazil's UN General Assembly vote in favor of Resolution 3379. Geisel reassures them that the government indents no restrictions on Zionist activities. Editorials in leading newspapers criticize the vote as contrary to Brazilian tradition.

December: Eleven OPEC oil ministers are taken hostage at Vienna. The terrorists broadcast a communiqué denouncing any compromise involving the Arab acceptance of Israel's existence. The hostages are flown to Algiers and Tripoli, where they are released.

Saul Bellow, US novelist, wins a Pulitzer Prize for his novel "Humboldt's Gift".

E. L. Doctorow, US novelist, wins a National Book Award for "Ragtime".

Lucy S. Dawidowicz, US historian, writes "The War Against the Jews, 1933-1945", a scholarly treatment of the "final solution".

"The Sunshine Boys", a play by Neil Simon, written in 1972, is adapted to film, starring George Burns and Walter Matthau. Simon deals with the serious problems of old age in a humorous way, and his characters are patterned after the well-known vaudevillians Smith and Dale (Joe Sulzer and Charlie Marks).

"A Chorus Line", a musical with music by Marvin Hamlisch and lyrics by Edward Kleban, opens on Broadway.

"The Pious Ones", a photographic essay of the Hassidic community in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York, appears in the August issue of the National Geographic magazine.

David Baltimore, US microbiologist, and Howard Martin Temin, US geneticist, are awarded the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine for discovering how certain cancer-causing viruses affect genes.

Benjamin R. Mottelson, US-born physicist, who lives in Denmark, and Aage Bohr, Danish physicist, are awarded the Nobel Prize in physics for their researches on the inner structure of the atom.

Leonid Kantorovich, Soviet economist, is awarded the Nobel Prize in economics. He is considered the leading representative of the mathematics school in Soviet economic planning.

WOJAC, the World Organization of Jews from Arab Countries, is founded in Paris.