Chaim Herzog

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Chaim Herzog
חיים הרצוג
Herzog in 1954
6th President of Israel
In office
5 May 1983 – 13 May 1993
Prime MinisterMenachem Begin
Yitzhak Shamir
Shimon Peres
Yitzhak Shamir
Yitzhak Rabin
Preceded byYitzhak Navon
Succeeded byEzer Weizman
Member of the Knesset
In office
20 July 1981 – 22 March 1983
5th Permanent Representative of Israel to the United Nations
In office
1975–1978
Preceded byYosef Tekoah
Succeeded byYehuda Zvi Blum
Personal details
Born(1918-09-17)17 September 1918
Alignment
(1981–91)
Spouse
​
(m. 1947)​
Children4, including Isaac and Michael
RelativesHerzog family
Alma materUniversity College London
University of London
Signature
Nickname"Vivian"
Military service
AllegianceUnited Kingdom (1943–47)
Israel (1948–62)
Branch/serviceBritish Army
Israel Defence Forces
Rank Major (UK)
Major-general (Israel)
Battles/warsWorld War II
1948 Arab–Israeli War

sixth President of Israel between 1983 and 1993. Born in Belfast and raised primarily in Dublin, the son of Ireland's Chief Rabbi Yitzhak HaLevi Herzog, he immigrated to Mandatory Palestine in 1935 and served in the Haganah Jewish paramilitary group during the 1936–1939 Arab revolt. He returned to Palestine after the war and, following the end of the British Mandate and Israel's Declaration of Independence in 1948, fought in the Battles of Latrun during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. He retired from the Israel Defence Forces
in 1962 with the rank of major-general.

After leaving the military, Herzog practised law. In 1972 he was a co-founder of

Alignment. Two years later, in March 1983, he was elected to the largely ceremonial role of President. He served for two five-year terms before retiring in 1993. He died four years later and was buried on Mount Herzl, Jerusalem
.

His son Isaac Herzog is the incumbent President of Israel, the first father–son pair to serve as the nation's president, and led the Israeli Labor Party and the parliamentary Opposition in the Knesset between 2013 and 2017.[1]

Biography

Chaim Herzog was born on Cliftonpark Avenue in Belfast as the son of Rabbi Yitzhak HaLevi Herzog, who was Chief Rabbi of Ireland from 1919 to 1937 (and later of Mandatory Palestine and the State of Israel), and his wife Sarah (née Hillman).[2][3] His father was born in Łomża in what was then Congress Poland, part of the Russian Empire, and his mother Sarah Herzog was born in Radviliškis in Lithuania, also part of the Russian Empire at that time; his maternal grandfather was the Orthodox Jewish Talmudic scholar Shmuel Yitzchak Hillman. The family home from 1919 was at 33 Bloomfield Avenue, Portobello, Dublin.

Herzog's father, a fluent

Federation of Zionist Youth and Habonim Dror
, the Labour Zionist movement, during his teenage years.

The family

University College, London (UCL), and was awarded Bachelor of Laws from the University of London in 1941. He later then qualified as a barrister at Lincoln's Inn. Following his time at university, Herzog held the position of Chairman of the Union of Jewish Students (then the IUJF).[5]

Military career

Herzog joined the

honorary rank of Major.[9]

Immediately following the war, he returned to Palestine. After the establishment of the State of Israel, he fought in the

major-general
.

Legal career

After leaving the army, Herzog opened a private law practice. He returned to public life in 1967, when the Six-Day War broke out, as a military commentator for Kol Israel radio news. Following the capture of the West Bank, he was appointed Military Governor of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.

In 1972, he went into partnership with

Herzog, Fox & Neeman, one of the largest law firms in Israel.[11]

Diplomatic and political career

Herzog visiting Beit Yitzhak in 1985

In 1975, Herzog was appointed

Simon Sebag-Montefiore have included this speech in a book on speeches that changed the world, which includes others by Martin Luther King Jr., Nelson Mandela, Winston Churchill and John F. Kennedy.[12] Furthermore, Herzog raised the voice against the indifference of some Jewish leaders who seemed "to act with indifference" to the light of the said condemnation against Zionism, he asked then: "Where is the Jewish people?" in The New York Times article titled: "Herzog Asserts Jews Didn't Aid Israelis in U.N. Zionism Debate".[13] After the publication of the editorial, "several letters of support arrived to the Israel delegation at the United Nations", he had become a hero for the common Jewish American citizen.[14]

In the

Alignment, the predecessor to the Labor Party
.

President of Israel

Herzog in his later years

On 22 March 1983, Herzog was elected by the

Kav 300 affair
.

In 1985, during his state visit to the Republic of Ireland, Herzog visited Wesley College, Dublin, opened the Irish Jewish Museum in Dublin, and unveiled a sculpture in honour of his childhood friend, Cearbhall Ó Dálaigh, former Chief Justice of Ireland and, later, the fifth President of Ireland, in Sneem Culture Park, County Kerry.

Herzog was an opponent of Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq, to which he referred to as a nest "of world terror". He said the world largely dismissed Israel's warnings that Baghdad was becoming a capital of world terrorism, adding that some Western countries helped Hussein develop into a military power.[15]

President Herzog reduced the sentences of Menachem Livni, Uzi Sharbaf and Shaul Nir, members of the Jewish Underground, who were sentenced to life imprisonment for the 1984 murder of four Palestinians in the West Bank town of Hebron. Herzog reduced the sentences, first to 24 years, then to 15 years, and in 1989, to 10 years, which enabled the men to be released two years later on good behaviour.[16][17]

Commemoration in Ireland

In 1998, the Ulster History Circle unveiled a commemorative blue plaque to Herzog at his birthplace on Cliftonpark Avenue, Belfast. The plaque was removed in August 2014 because it had been repeatedly vandalised with anti-Israel slogans. DUP councillor Brian Kingston said, "This is a shocking indication of the level of tension and anti-Semitism which currently exists in parts of Belfast."[18][19]

A park is also named for him, Herzog Park, in Rathgar in south Dublin.[20]

Personal life

Herzog's grave on Mount Herzl

Death

Herzog died on 17 April 1997 in Tel Aviv, from heart failure caused by pneumonia at the age of 78.[1] He is buried on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem.

Family

Herzog's father was Yitzhak HaLevi Herzog, chief rabbi of Ireland and later Israel. His brother Yaakov Herzog served as Israel's ambassador to Canada and later as Director General of the Prime Minister's Office. His brother-in-law was diplomat Abba Eban, their wives being sisters. He had four children, including Isaac Herzog, a politician who was the chairman of the Israeli Labor Party and chairman of the Jewish Agency and is now President of Israel, the first son of a president to serve as such.[21]

Works and publications

Herzog memorial stone in Auschwitz
Plaque on the Belfast house in which Herzog was born, 2011
  • Herzog, Chaim (1978). Who Stands Accused?: Israel Answers Its Critics. Random House.
    OCLC 3865344
    .
  • Herzog, Chaim;
    OCLC 741355280
    .
  • Herzog, Chaim (September 1989). Heroes of Israel: Profiles of Jewish Courage. Little Brown and Company.
    OCLC 19510435
    .
  • Herzog, Chaim (12 November 1996). Living History: A Memoir. Pantheon.
    OCLC 36792752
    .
  • Herzog, Chaim;
    OCLC 71323946
    .
  • Herzog, Chaim (March 1998). The War of Atonement: The Inside Story of the Yom Kippur War. Greenhill Books.
    OCLC 427612923
    .

References

  1. ^ a b c Pace, Eric (18 April 1997). "Chaim Herzog, Former Israeli President, Dies at 78". The New York Times. Retrieved 6 June 2016.
  2. ^ a b "Herzog, Chaim (1918–1997)". Israel and Zionism. The Department for Jewish Zionist Education. Archived from the original on 26 September 2007. Retrieved 5 November 2007.
  3. ^ "Sara Herzog Dead at 82". JTA. 16 January 1979. Retrieved 20 March 2015.
  4. ISBN 978-1-906353-00-1
    .
  5. ^ Sunshine, Nick (27 June 2019). "UJS celebrates its centenary today, and we feel blessed". www.thejc.com. Archived from the original on 16 November 2021. Retrieved 6 December 2021.
  6. ^ Herzog, Living History, p. 47.
  7. ^ "Supplement 36274". The London Gazette. 3 December 1943. p. 5331. Retrieved 2 April 2018.
  8. ^ "Israeli statesman Chaim Herzog dies". The Washington Post. 18 April 1997. Retrieved 26 May 2022.
  9. ^ "No. 37899". The London Gazette (Supplement). 4 March 1947. p. 1116.
  10. ^ Middle East International No 266, 10 January 1986, Publishers Lord Mayhew, Dennis Walters MP; Wilbur Crane Eveland III p. 14
  11. ^ Noam Sharvit (26 June 2006). "BDI: Herzog, Fox & Neeman remains top Israeli law firm". Globes. Archived from the original on 18 October 2015. Retrieved 29 March 2015.
  12. ^ "Herzog speech on Zionism makes history". Ynetnews. 26 June 2007. Retrieved 29 March 2015.
  13. ^ "Herzog Asserts Jews Didn't Aid Israelis in U.N. Zionism Debate". The New York Times. 25 October 1975.
  14. ISBN 978-607-8564-17-0. Archived from the original
    on 10 April 2022. Retrieved 1 October 2021.
  15. ^ Steve Padilla; Ronald L. Soble (19 November 1990). "Herzog Calls Iraq a Nest of Terrorism". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 9 September 2011.
  16. ^ "3 Israeli Terrorists Are Released In 4th Reduction of Their Terms". The New York Times. Associated Press. 27 December 1990. Retrieved 29 March 2015.
  17. ^ Alan Cowell (7 June 1989). "Documents given to Arabs in Gaza". The New York Times. Retrieved 29 March 2015.
  18. ^ "A distant conflict resonates in Northern Ireland". The Economist. 3 August 2017. Retrieved 25 May 2020.
  19. ^ "Chaim Herzog son saddened that Belfast plaque removed". BBC News. 13 August 2014. Retrieved 29 March 2015.
  20. ^ "Herzog Park | Dublin City Council". www.dublincity.ie. Retrieved 26 May 2018.
  21. ^ Hoffman, Gil (2 June 2021). "Isaac Herzog elected 11th President of Israel by wide margin". The Jerusalem Post. Retrieved 2 June 2021.

External links

Military offices
Preceded by Head of Southern Command
1958 		Succeeded by
Diplomatic posts
Preceded by Permanent Representative of Israel to the
United Nations
1975–1978 		Succeeded by
Yehuda Blum
Political offices
Preceded by President of Israel
1983–1993 		Succeeded by
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