Highlights from 1997

• The Healer of Bnei Brak
  Offering advice on the best specialists and the occasional incisive diagnosis, a Belz hasid with no medical training has won the trust of thousands of `patients' and the respect of top doctors
  
• Rockin' Moroccans
  (January 9, 1997)The impoverished Negev town of Sderot is turning out some of Israel's most interesting bands
  
• Magic Carpet to the East End
  (February 6, 1997)Anti-Zionist hasidim are persuading Yemenite Jews to move to London, not Israel - and transforming them into Yiddish-speaking Ashkenazim in the process
  
• Chance Encounter
  (February 6, 1997)Paul Auster doesn't know why he writes the stories he does - but he knows he has to
  
• The Accounting
  (March 6, 1997)The battle to retrieve assets from Swiss banks has unleashed bitter acrimony. But negotiations are under way, too, with 18 more European countries, and the campaign is provoking internal Jewish feuds - over who speaks for the victims and the survivors, who has the right to the wealth of the dead, and whether the emphasis on money is desecrating the memory of the Holocaust.
  
• The View from Damascus
  (March 20, 1997)While officials in Syria are actively seeking the resumption of peace negotiations, to most ordinary people in the country the image of Israel remains that of a bloodthirsty terrorist state
  
• Closed on Shabbat?
  (April 17, 1997)The shouting between secular and Orthodox gets ever shriller. Warnings are swapped of "pogroms" and "Khomeinization." And, for the first time, the dispute over the nature of Sabbath in the Jewish state is moving from localized conflicts to a nation-wide struggle.
  
• Let the Hunt Begin
  (May 29, 1997)`In Horebeh that is in the valley of Ahur, under the steps going eastward at 40 long cubits: a silver chest and its content of a value of 17 talents. In the funeral monument under the third course: 100 golden ingots. In the large cistern which is in the yard of the small peristyle, in a hidden recess of its bottom blocked by the alluvial deposits, opposing the upper opening: 900 talents...'
  
• Farrakhan Talks to the Jews
  (June 26, 1997)For three hours, over coffee in his home, Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan spoke to the Jewish people through The Jerusalem Report. The anti-Semitism he repeatedly spouts was no less virulent at his dining room table, but his message "is for the Jews' own good."
  
• The Ethnic Underclass
  (June 12, 1997)Half of Israel is still getting a raw deal. Jews of North African and Asian origin get inferior education, have a hard time winning top jobs, and earn consistently less than Ashkenazim. And, most disturbingly, there are few signs that the gap is closing.
  
• The Unwanted 400,000
  (August 7, 1997)After nearly half a century, the Palestinians who fled to Lebanon are still an unwelcome and distinctly foreign presence. Lebanon rejects them as permanent residents, Arafat has little time or money for them, and Israel most certainly won't take them back.
  
• Busting the Bible Code Breakers
  (September 4, 1997)Michael Drosnin's runaway bestseller, which has gripped the world with revelations and predictions gleaned from a hidden Bible code, has been hit by a barrage of academic attacks. But as The Report now details, there is a far more damning chorus of criticism growing against the two little-known Israeli researchers whose findings are at the root of the entire Bible code phenomenon.
  
• From Cradle to Grave
  (September 4, 1997)Hamas, best known for sending out suicide bombers, has built itself a wide base of Palestinian support by providing a broad range of social services
  
• Bringing Back That Loving Feeling
  (October 2, 1997)They were swaying to his tunes in the 60s. Since Shlomo Carlebach's death, they're hoppin'.
  
• Fallout from the Mossad Affair
  (October 30, 1997)The botched assassination in Amman has rejuvenated Hamas, weakened Israel's secret services, and may have dashed a much wider offensive against terrorism
  
• German, Jewish and Proud of It
  (November 27, 1997)Germany's Jewish community is growing faster than any other worldwide, and its members talk increasingly of feeling 'at home.' Are they being swept away on a wave of premature euphoria, as their critics caution, or can Jews really forge a new, comfortable identity in the land where the Holocaust was conceived?
  
• Partners in Crime
  (December 25, 1997)Palestinian and Israeli crooks are enjoying an evermore profitable union. And efforts to thwart them are being hampered by the indifference of Palestinian legislators and the direct involvement in some crimes of Palestinian officials.
  
• Lebanon: Israel's Vietnam?
  (December 11, 1997)More than 100 families are mourning soldiers killed in or en route to Lebanon this year. Has the 'security zone,' designed to prevent enemy gunmen attacking across the northern border, outlived its usefulness? Is it time to bring the troops home?
  

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