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Herzog, Chaim (1918-1997)
Israel's sixth President
.Chaim Herzog was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, where his father,
Isaac Halevy Herzog, was a well-known rabbi. The family moved to Eretz Yisrael
in 1935 and Isaac Herzog became Chief Rabbi in 1937. Chaim was educated
in the Yishuv and then at Cambridge and London Universities, where he earned
his law degree.
During World War II, he served as a tank commander in Britain's
elite Guard Armoured Division, later becoming a director of British
intelligence in Germany. In this capacity, he identified a captured
soldier as Nazi leader Heinrich Himmler. After the war, he served
in the Haganah, the Jewish underground which became the Israel
Defense Forces in 1948.
During Israel's War of Independence Herzog was an officer in the
battle for Latrun, and later headed military intelligence twice,
from 1948-1950 and 1959-1962. He served as Israel's military attache
in Washington, 1950-1954; Commanding Officer of the Jerusalem
district, 1954-1957; and Chief of Southern Command, 1957-1959.
When he retired from the IDF in 1962, Herzog headed an industrial
investment company. On the eve of the Six Day War he became a
radio commentator best known for his military and political analysis,
especially during the Six Day War and the Yom Kippur War. His
book about the 1973 war, "The War of Atonement", was published
in 1975, the year he became Israel's Ambassador to the United
Nations. During his tenure at the U.N. he denounced the infamous
resolution equating Zionism as racism and defended Israel's rescue
of Jewish hostages held by terrorists in Entebbe, Uganda, in July
1976.
In 1981 Chaim Herzog was elected to the Knesset as a member of
the Labor party. His book, "The Arab-Israel Wars", was published
in 1982. In 1983, he became Israel's president, a position to
which he was re-elected to in 1988. Chaim Herzog died in 1997.
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