Looking back at 5775

For the first time, a member of Women of the Wall, reads from a full-size Torah scroll during its monthly prayer service at the Kotel.

Part two of two

NEW YORK (JTA) – Here’s a look back at the highs and lows (and everything in between) of the second half of 5775.

March 2015

Prime Minister Netanyahu addresses a joint session of Congress, amid lingering controversy, to warn of the emerging Iran nuclear deal. Several Jewish lawmakers skip the address. Obama says the speech offers “nothing new,” and Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., calls it an “insult to the intelligence of the United States.”

The Reform movement’s rabbinic group, the Central Conference of American Rabbis, installs Denise Eger as its first openly gay president.

The Swarthmore Hillel votes to disaffiliate from Hillel International to protest the Jewish campus group’s rules on Israel programming. In 2013, the Pennsylvania college’s Hillel ignited a national debate on Hillel International’s Israel policies, which restrict programs with speakers who support boycotting the Jewish state.

Netanyahu wins a fourth term, his third in a row, as Israel’s prime minister, roundly defeating his main challenger, Isaac Herzog of the Zionist Union. Netanyahu’s remarks in the days before the election prove highly controversial, as he says a Palestinian state will not be established under his watch and warns on Election Day about Arab-Israelis turning out to vote “in droves.” The comments are condemned in the United States by the Reform and Conservative movements and by President Obama. Netanyahu later apologizes to Israel’s Arabs and insists he still backs a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Seven children, ages 5 to 16, are killed in a Brooklyn house fire reportedly caused by a malfunctioning Sabbath hot plate. The children’s mother, Gayle Sassoon, and her daughter, Tziporah, sustain injuries in the blaze but survive; the father was out of town at a religious conference. The children are buried in Israel.

Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is found guilty of fraud under aggravating circumstances and breach of trust for accepting cash-filled envelopes from U.S. Jewish businessman Morris Talansky and using it for personal gain. Olmert’s lawyers later appeal the verdict in what is known as the “Talansky Affair.”

April 2015

Negotiators for the United States, five other world powers and Iran reach a framework accord for a deal to limit Iran’s nuclear program and set June 30 as the deadline for a final, comprehensive deal.

Women of the Wall, a group that promotes women’s religious rights at the Western Wall, for the first time reads from a full-size Torah scroll during its monthly prayer service at the Kotel, contravening regulations there. The Torah was passed across the barrier between the men’s and women’s sections by male supporters. The following month, police block and arrest a man who attempts to repeat the effort.

Rabbi Aharon Lichtenstein, a leader of the national religious movement in Israel, a head of the Har Etzion Yeshiva in the West Bank and a prominent modern Orthodox scholar, dies at 81.

The White House acknowledges that a U.S. drone strike in the Pakistan-Afghanistan border area in January accidentally killed Warren Weinstein, the Jewish-American government contractor who had been held hostage by al-Qaida since 2011. An Italian hostage, Giovanni Lo Porto, who was held captive since 2012, also was killed in the strike on an al-Qaida-linked compound.

The American Jewish Reconstructionist movement is roiled by debate about whether to drop its longstanding ban against intermarried rabbinical school students. Some synagogues threaten to quit the movement if the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College becomes the first of America’s four major Jewish religious denominations to ordain intermarried rabbis; the debate continues.

Sen. Bernie Sanders, a Vermont Independent, announces that he intends to run for the U.S. presidency. A self-described “Democratic socialist,” Sanders, who is running as a Democrat, is considered a long shot to defeat the party’s front-runner, Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Ethiopian-Israeli protesters clash with police during demonstrations throughout Jerusalem over two attacks against Ethiopian-Israelis by Israeli law enforcement, one of which is captured on video. The attacks spark a national debate about racism in Israel.

May 2015

Ed Miliband, the first Jewish leader of Britain’s Labor Party, fails to become his country’s first Jewish prime minister as the incumbent, David Cameron of the Conservative Party, handily wins reelection and secures 331 of the 650 seats in Parliament. Miliband resigns immediately after the defeat.

Rabbi Freundel is sentenced to nearly 6 1/2 years in prison – 45 days for each of the 52 counts of misdemeanor voyeurism. Additional court documents show Freundel also engaged in extramarital sexual encounters.

The U.S. Congress overwhelmingly passes a bill providing for its approval of any Iran nuclear deal.

Shlomo Riskin, rabbi of the West Bank city of Efrat, is summoned to a hearing by the Chief Rabbinate’s governing body on the future of his position. An Orthodox progressive on women’s issues and conversion, Riskin vows not to go, suspecting the Chief Rabbinate is looking for a pretext to dismiss him. The Rabbinate later backs down and renews Riskin’s position.

Rochelle Shoretz, who founded the national cancer group Sharsheret after being diagnosed with breast cancer at 28, dies of the disease at 42.

June 2015

After a lengthy story in The New York Times detailing his habit of inviting young males to join him for naked heart-to-heart talks in the sauna, Rabbi Jonathan Rosenblatt of the Riverdale Jewish Center in New York asserts he is innocent of any crime but says he regrets if his conduct offended anyone. Congregants at his Orthodox synagogue are divided over whether or not to dismiss him. Rosenblatt eventually rebuffs offers to buy out the remainder of his contract, vowing he will stay on as leader of the shul.

The U.S. Supreme Court strikes down a 2002 law allowing U.S. citizens to list Jerusalem as their place of birth. The case was brought by the parents of 12-year-old Menachem Zivotofsky, whose parents sought the passport listing not long after his birth.

Spain’s lower house of parliament passes a law offering citizenship to descendants of Sephardic Jews, the result of a 2012 government decision that described the law as compensation for the expulsion of Jews during the Spanish Inquisition.

David Blatt, the first Israeli to serve as head coach of an NBA team, guides the Cleveland Cavaliers to the league finals. Blatt’s club loses to the Golden State Warriors in six games after taking a 2-1 lead in the best-of-seven series.

The U.N. Commission of Inquiry on the 2014 Gaza conflict finds that Israel’s military and Palestinian armed groups committed “serious violations” of international human rights law during their 2014 summer war. While the report accuses both sides of possible war crimes, its findings focus more on what it considers Israeli wrongdoing. Israel, which refused to cooperate with the investigation, slams the outcome.

Jews Offering New Alternatives for Healing, an Orthodox Jewish nonprofit that purports to help gay men become heterosexual, is found guilty of violating New Jersey’s Consumer Fraud Act and is ordered to pay $72,000 in damages to three former clients. The plaintiffs said JONAH claimed a success rate it could not prove and used scientifically questionable therapy methods.

Days before the U.S. Supreme Court endorses the right to same-sex marriage, the Public Religion Research Institute finds that American Jews are among the country’s most supportive religious groups of same-sex marriage.

The Pine Bush Central School District in upstate New York agrees to pay nearly $4.5 million to settle a lawsuit alleging widespread anti-Semitic harassment. The 2012 suit by five former and current students was due to go to trial in July.

Israeli parliamentarian Michael Oren, Israel’s former ambassador to the United States and before that a respected American-Israeli historian, causes a stir with a new book, “Ally,” suggesting that President Obama purposely damaged U.S.-Israeli relations.

July 2015

Iran and six world powers led by the United States reach a historic agreement to curb Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for the easing of sanctions. President Obama says the deal cuts off all of Iran’s pathways to a nuclear bomb. Prime Minister Netanyahu calls the deal a “stunning historic mistake.” AIPAC quickly launches an all-out effort to have Congress scuttle the deal.

A 94-year-old former Auschwitz guard, Oskar Groening, is sentenced by a German court to four years in prison for his role in the murder of 300,000 Hungarian Jews in the concentration camp.

Theodore Bikel, the actor and folk singer who won fame playing Tevye in “Fiddler on the Roof,” dies at 91.

The apparent suicide of an ex-Hasid, Faigy Mayer, 30, who jumped to her death from a rooftop bar in Manhattan, prompts intense discussion in the Jewish community about how the Hasidic community treats those who leave it.

A federal parole panel unanimously grants parole to Jonathan Pollard, the civilian U.S. Navy analyst sentenced to life in prison for spying for Israel. Pollard is to be freed Nov. 20 after serving 30 years of a life sentence. It’s not clear whether Pollard, who became an Israeli citizen during his incarceration, will be able to travel to Israel.

Yishai Schlissel, a haredi Orthodox Israeli recently released from prison for an attack at Jerusalem’s 2005 gay pride march, strikes again, stabbing six people at this year’s parade. One victim, 16-year-old Shira Banki, later dies of her wounds.

An arson attack in the West Bank village of Duma kills an 18-month-old Palestinian baby, Ali Saad Dawabsha, and leaves his parents and brother critically injured. Jewish extremists are suspected, prompting handwringing in Israeli circles about Israel’s failure to rein in extremist Jews. Police arrest no suspects in the attack, and several days later the baby’s father dies.

August 2015

Hebrew National runs an ad campaign suggesting that consumers grill up their hot dogs along with bacon, clams and other non-kosher foods. After a JTA report on the subject, the iconic kosher hot dog company pulls the ads, saying, “Our consumers who adhere to a kosher diet are very important to us.”

In the raucous first debate of the Republican presidential race, primary rivals, including front-runner Donald Trump, agree on opposing the Iran nuclear deal. Meanwhile, the Senate’s third-ranking Democrat and the most influential Jewish voice in the body, Charles Schumer of New York, comes out against the deal favored by President Obama.

American Jewish reggae star Matisyahu is disinvited from a Spanish music festival after rebuffing a demand that he endorse Palestinian statehood. Matisyahu calls the cancellation appalling and offensive, commentators say the conflation of Jews and Israel is anti-Semitic, and festival organizers eventually backtrack, apologize and reinvite Matisyahu to perform, which he does.

J Street U, the campus arm of the left-wing “pro-Israel, pro-peace” lobby group J Street, elects a Muslim student, University of Maryland senior Amna Farooqi, as president.

American Airlines announces it is canceling its flights to Israel, saying its Philadelphia-Israel route has lost $20 million over the last year. In June, El Al inaugurated a new route between Boston and Israel.

Frazier Glenn Miller, the white supremacist who killed three people outside two Jewish facilities in a Kansas City suburb in April 2014, is found guilty of capital murder after less than two hours of jury deliberations. Miller, who had admitted to the killings but pleaded not guilty, represented himself at trial.

September 2015

Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., becomes the 34th voice in the U.S. Senate to endorse the Iran nuclear deal, effectively ensuring that Congress cannot overturn it and handing President Obama a major victory.