Historical 2006
Vice Prime Minister Shimon Peres Meets Jordan's King Abdullah in Petra; Agree to Initiate Cooperation to Advance the Joint Airport Project in Aqaba
June 21, 2006
Vice Prime Minister Shimon Peres met with Jordan's King Abdullah in Petra today during the Nobel Prize Laureates' conference convening in Petra. The two discussed joint Israeli, Jordanian and Palestinian economic projects, especially the construction of an international airport in Aqaba that would serve both Israel and Jordan; Israeli-Jordanian cooperation in quarry exploration, mainly copper mining; as well as advancing a joint project to build a conduit to carry water from the Red Sea to the Dead Sea.
Vice Prime Minister Shimon Peres and Jordan's King Abdullah II agreed during the meeting to initiate immediate cooperation in order to move forward with the joint airport project, starting with a meeting with Vice Prime Minister Shimon Peres and Transportation Minister Shaul Mofaz, Director of King's Office Basem Awadallah as well as Aqaba's Governor. Another meeting will be held to further cooperation between Israel and Jordan in the copper mining domain. Peres and Jordan's King Abdullah II also discussed the establishment of Free Trade Zones that could create thousands of new jobs for the Palestinians, Jordanians and Israelis along their common borders.
The two also discussed the situation between Israel and the Palestinians. Peres stressed that the main issue with the Palestinians was the large number of armed factions that operated on the ground, which "exacerbate the sense of uncertainty and increase terrorist activity in the region." Peres added that those who claimed that Hamas had won were mistaken: "Hamas might have won the elections, but it is unable to govern and cannot govern, because its solutions cannot be implemented and only prolong human suffering and bloodshed."
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Academic Institute for Jewish Genealogy Opened in Jerusalem
(January 31, 2006)
The International Institute for Jewish Genealogy and Paul Jacobi Center opened today in the Jewish National and University Library at Givat Ram, Jerusalem.
After riveting the attentions of thousands of Jews throughout the world over the past two decades, Jewish genealogy and family history has reached a level of maturity that makes it ripe to take its place in the academic world. To that end, the new Institute has two main aims – to engage in Jewish genealogical research and teaching at the university level and to make Jewish Genealogy a recognized academic discipline within the realm of Jewish Studies.
The Institute is the only one of its kind in the Jewish world. It plans to operate on an interdisciplinary basis and also in a collaborative way with organizations engaged in aspects of Jewish genealogy. It will put a premium on innovative programmes and projects of practical benefit to individual family historians.
Its establishment is the result of efforts over the last two years of an international Founding Committee, headed by Dr. Sallyann Sack, Ph.D., of Washington, DC.
Dr. Yosef Lamdan, D.Phil., has been appointed as Director of the Institute.
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Tel Aviv Area replaces NY As World's Largest Jewish Metro Area
January 16, 2006
According to statistics presented at a Jewish Policy Planning Institute conference recently, the greater Tel Aviv area has already replaced New York as the city with the most Jews.
The change is part of a larger trend showing that while the number of Jews living in Israel between 1970 and 2005 increased, the number of Jews in the Diaspora shrunk by about a quarter in that time. Overall, the world Jewish population has increased slightly in the last 35 years, but its percentage of the overall world population has decreased by about a third since 1970.
The Jewish population increased from 12.65 million in 1970 to nearly 13 million in 2005, but in the same period, the world population grew by more than 70 percent. As a result, the Jewish people now comprises 0.21 percent of the world population, down from 0.35 percent 35 years ago.
The statistics also show that the number of Jews in the Diaspora has decreased from slightly more than 10 million to 7.75 million in 2005. The increase in the world Jewish population, then, is due to a significant rise in the number of Jews living in Israel since 1970.
The number of Jews in the Diaspora has decreased as a result of low birthrates, assimilation and the mass immigration of Soviet Jewry to Israel during the 1990s. Migration has led to a drop of nearly 90 percent in the Jewish population of the former Soviet Union. Accompanied by a positive natural growth rate, it has also caused the number of Jews living in Israel to multiply in the last three decades.
Jews from the former Soviet Union have also moved to countries other than Israel. The Jewish population of Germany jumped by 236 percent after some 100,000 Jews decided to move there, and immigration was the main cause of growth in the Jewish communities of Canada and Australia. In the United States, the number of Jews has remained stable even though hundreds of thousands of Jews from the former Soviet Union and from Israel have moved there.
The mass immigration to Israel in the last few years has drastically reduced the number of Jews living in countries in distress. Some 90 percent of world Jews live in countries with a quality of life that is at least as high as in Israel.
The size of Jewish communities are expected to continue to decrease (citing demographic trends and particularly low birth rates) in Jewish communities around the world.
In 2000, 613 Jewish babies were born in Russia, while 8,218 Jewish people died there. In Britain, 2,665 Jewish babies were born in 2002, compared to 3,670 deaths. Intermarriage also plays a role in lowering the world Jewish population. He said the average intermarriage rate in the Diaspora is 48 percent.
Seventy percent of Jewish women in Russia and 80 percent of Jewish men had non-Jewish spouses in 2000. The intermarriage rate in the U.S.is about 50 percent, and it ranges between 35 percent and 44 percent in South America and western Europe.
(Source: Israeli News)
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Historic conference - JANUARY 7-9
(Jerusalem) An historic conference is planned for JANUARY 7-9, 2006, bringing Jewish parliamentarians from over 20 nations to Jerusalem. The conference is co-sponsored by the Knesset, the World Jewish Congress, the Israel Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Tourism and The Israel Forum. Attendance is expected from legislators from around the world including US Senators and Members of Congress, British members of the House of Lords and Ministers, including the President of the Assembly of Tunisia.
The International Council of Jewish Parliamentarians (ICJP) was founded in 2002 to engage Jewish lawmakers from around the world in an ongoing involvement with Israel and to discuss issues pertaining to anti-Semitism, restitution of Holocaust era assets, relations with the developing world, interfaith dialogue and ethical issues of international concern. The conference will be focused on Shaping a Better World Together – The Role of Jewish Parliamentarians.
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UN General Assembly Unanimously Designates
January 27 as Holocaust Remembrance Day
The United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday, November 1, 2005, unanimously adopted a resolution introduced by Israel and designated January 27 as Holocaust Remembrance Day. In doing so, the assembly urged the nations of the world to observe the day so that future generations will be spared acts of genocide.
Co-sponsored by some 90 other states, the resolution rejects Holocaust denial and encourages countries to develop educational programs about the horrors of genocide. It also condemns religious intolerance, incitement, harassment, or violence based on ethnic origin or religious belief.
Assembly President Jan Eliasson said the memory of the Holocaust must be "a unifying historic warning around which we must rally; not only to recall the grievous crimes committed in human history, but also to reaffirm our unfaltering resolve to prevent the recurrence of such crimes."
Israeli Ambassador Dan Gillerman said the Holocaust "brought us face to face with the full extent of man's capacity for inhumanity to his fellow man," and that it served as a "critical impetus" for the development of human rights, the drafting of landmark international conventions on genocide, and the founding of the UN itself.
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(Courtesy of the GPO)
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