Chaim Herzog
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Chaim Herzog (חיים הרצוג) (September 17, 1918 - April 17, 1997) served as the sixth President of Israel (1983 - 1993), following a distinguished career in both the British Army and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).
Herzog was born in Belfast, Ireland, the son of notable Rabbi Yitzhak HaLevi Herzog, who was Chief Rabbi of Ireland from 1919 to 1937 (and later, of Palestine and Israel). The family home (from 1919) was at 33 Bloomfield Avenue in Dublin. Herzog studied at Wesley College, Dublin.
He emigrated to Palestine in 1935, and served in the Jewish paramilitary group Haganah during the Arab revolt of 1936-38.
He went on to earn a degree in law at University College London and then qualified as a barrister at Lincoln's Inn. He joined the British army during World War II, operating primarily in Germany. By the end of the war, he had become head of intelligence in northern Germany for the British, and participated in the liberation of several concentration camps.
Immediately following the war, he returned to Palestine to participate in the agitation for the formation of a Jewish state. Following the 1947 UN Partition Plan creating the state of Israel, he fought in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, serving as an officer in the battles for Latrun.
His intelligence experience during World War II was seen as a valuable asset, and he subsequently became head of the IDF Military Intelligence Branch, a position in which he served from 1948 to 1950 and again from 1959 to 1962. In the intervening years, he had served as defense attaché at the Israeli Embassy in the United States (from 1950 to 1954). By the time he retired from the IDF in 1962, he held the rank of Major-General.
After his retirement, he entered private law practice, but entered public life again as the 1967 Six-Day War broke out, this time as a military commentator on news radio. Following the capture of the West Bank in that war, he entered official public life again, becoming the first military governor of the newly-acquired territory.
In 1972 he founded, together with Michael Fox and Yaakov Neeman, the law firm of Herzog, Fox & Neeman, today the largest law firm in Israel.
In 1975 he was appointed Israel's Ambassador to the United Nations, in which capacity he served until 1978. During his term the UN adopted the "Zionism is Racism" resolution (General Assembly Resolution 3379), which Herzog condemned and symbolically tore up (as his father had done to one of the British white papers regarding the British Mandate in Palestine), saying: "For us, the Jewish people, this resolution based on hatred, falsehood and arrogance, is devoid of any moral or legal value."
In 1981 Herzog entered politics for the first time, winning election to the Knesset as a member of the Labour Party.
In 1983 he was elected the sixth President of Israel by the Knesset; he served two five-year terms (then the maximum permitted by Israeli basic law), retiring from political life in 1993. As president of Israel, Herzog made quite a few visits abroad, being the first Israeli president to make an official visit to Germany, as well as visiting several far-east countries, Australia, and New Zealand. He was also noted for pardoning the Shin Bet agent involved in the Kav 300 affair.
In 1985 Herzog visited Wesley College Dublin during his State Visit to Ireland, during which he opened the Irish Jewish Museum in Dublin.
Herzog passed away on 17 April 1997, and is buried on Mount Herzl, Jerusalem.
Herzog also authored several books on the historical events in which he was involved, including:
- War of Atonement: The Inside Story of the Yom Kippur War (1975)
- Who Stands Accused? : Israel Answers Its Critics (1978)
- The Arab-Israeli Wars: War and Peace in the Middle East (1982)
- Heroes of Israel: Profiles of Jewish Courage (1989).
- Battles of the Bible (1978), co-authored with military historian Mordecai Gichon, and his memoirs.
- Living History: A Memoir (1996).
See also
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