June 3, 1974 Having defeated Shimon Peres in an election for Labor Party leader, Yitzhak Rabin formally succeeds Golda Meir as prime minister when he presents his coalition government to the Knesset for approval. He…
Following a week of intense public debate and finger pointing, Prime Minister Golda Meir announced that she was resign as leader of the country at a Labor Party meeting.
Israel holds the election for the eighth Knesset after a delay caused by the October 1973 war.
David Ben-Gurion, (born David Gruen) Israel’s first Prime Minister passes away at the Tel Hashomer-Sheba Medical Center in Tel-Aviv at the age of 87.
Emerging in the early seventies, to protest against the social injustices felt by the Mizrahi Jews in Israel, the Black Panthers staged a number of demonstrations in the country and began to generate widespread support.
Israel’s Law of Return, which was originally passed in 1950, was amended to further define citizen eligibility in Israel.
May 23, 1969 Pioneering Knesset member Hanin Zoabi is born into a Muslim family in Nazareth. Zoabi earns a bachelor’s in philosophy and psychology from the University of Haifa and a master’s from the Hebrew…
January 21, 1968 Three parties in the Knesset — Mapai, Ahdut Ha’avoda and Rafi — join with the Histadrut to form the Labor Party. The secretary general of Mapai, Golda Meir, agrees to chair the…
As tensions with Egypt escalate, Prime Minister Levi Eshkol appoints Moshe Dayan as Defense Minister, leading to Israel’s first national unity government.
The 1965 election preparations begin in June 1963 when David Ben-Gurion resigns as Prime Minister for the second time.
June 8, 1963 Chaim Boger, a founder of the first Hebrew high school in the Yishuv, the area of Jewish settlement in pre-state Palestine, dies at age 86. Boger, born with the last name Bograshov…
Shazar, a drafter of Israeli’s declaration of Independence who had helped Jews make Aliyah from Russia in the 1920s, becomes Israel’s third President.
Yitzhak Ben-Zvi, Israel’s second President and celebrated historian, passes away at the age of 78.
Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion resigns as a result of the controversial, covert operation in Egypt, setting the stage for new elections in the summer of 1961.
March 10, 1960 Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion and U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower meet for more than two hours at the White House. “This was the first opportunity I have had of seeing President Eisenhower…
Nir Barkat is born in Jerusalem. He serves as the city’s mayor from 2008 to 2018, then joins the Likud party to run for the Knesset.
June 9, 1959 Benjamin “Benny” Gantz, who rises to chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces and a top candidate for prime minister, is born in Kfar Ahim. His father is a native of…
Tzipi Livni is born in Tel Aviv to two prominent figures of the Irgun. A graduate of Bar-Ilan University’s school of law, she later serves in the Israeli Army, Mossad, and works as an attorney before entering politics.
The first of eleven Basic Laws is issued by the Israeli parliament. Basic Laws are originally intended to form the basis of an Israeli Constitution, but the constitution remains unwritten.
The Knesset debates Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion’s announcement that Israeli troops would withdraw from Sinai following the 1956 Suez War.
May 1, 1956 Finance Minister Levi Eshkol authorizes the establishment of the city of Ashdod along the Mediterranean coast between Ashkelon and Tel Aviv on land rich in history, including the Arab-Israeli conflict. The name…
November 2, 1955 Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, assumes the premiership again, replacing Moshe Sharett, who had succeeded him. Ben-Gurion had retired from Israeli politics in 1953 and went to live on a Negev…
Two Israeli paratrooper platoons made up of approximately fifty IDF soldiers storm an Egyptian army camp in Gaza. The raid is a reprisal for continued fedayeen (Palestinian militants) attacks against Israeli civilians.
February 21, 1955 Former Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion ends his 14-month semiretirement from politics to replace Pinhas Lavon as the defense minister in Prime Minister Moshe Sharett’s Cabinet. Ben-Gurion has remained a member of the…
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