It’s been a long year at UCLA, marked by special Hillel bashes (such as Joe Bruin’s Bear Mitzvah), USAC elections, and USAC- and BDS-related drama. To wrap up the year, Ha’Am has compiled a list of some of the most significant events of 2014, both globally and Jewishly. We’d like to extend a big yashar koach (congratulations) and mazal tov to the Class of 2014 (including Ha’Am content editor and writer Yona Remer), and we wish all of our readers a happy and meaningful Shavuot this week, as well as the best of luck during finals and a great summer.
Looking back over the academic year…
September – The UN confirmed the use of chemical weapons in an attack in the ongoing Syrian civil war on the 16th.
October – From the 1st through the 16th, the US government partially shut down. Here’s an explanation as to why. On the 7th, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, former Chief Sephardic Rabbi of Israel and one of the most influential rabbis in the world, passed away at age 93.
November – Typhoon Haiyan struck the Philippines on the 9th.
December – A possible cure for HIV was discovered by Yeshiva University’s Albert Einstein College of Medicine on the 3rd; Nelson Mandela passed away at age 95 on the 10th.
January – Former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon passed away at age 86.
February – The Seattle Seahawks defeated the Denver Broncos in the 2014 Super Bowl on the 2nd. On the 11th, Israel was granted observer status to the Pacific Alliance, which opened up new economic opportunities with Latin American countries. On the 26th, Russia began military exercises on the Ukrainian border and a group of gunmen bearing Russian symbols seized the Crimean parliament building, beginning the ongoing crisis in Crimea and the rest of Ukraine.
March – On the 6th, Jews of Spanish descent were invited to return to Spain, after being expelled in 1492. On the 8th, Malaysian Airlines flight 370 disappeared en route to Beijing.
April – An 8.2-magnitude earthquake rocked Chile’s coast on the 1st. On the 13th, 3 people were killed in shootings at Jewish facilities in Kansas. During the evening of the 14th-15th, approximately 276 female students were kidnapped by the terrorist group Boko Haram from the town of Chibok, Nigeria.
May – On the 24th, Elliot Rodgers killed himself after supposedly shooting 14 people, killing seven, near the UC Santa Barbara campus. The Pope made a historic visit to Israel from the 24th-26th.
