Chaim Herzog

Chaim Herzog was born in 1918 in Belfast

Chaim Herzog was born in Belfast in 1918. His father, Rabbi Yitzhak HaLevi Herzog, became Chief Rabbi of Ireland, and the family moved to Dublin when Chaim was a baby. He had a religious education in a cheder and also studied at Alexandra College and Wesley College, and he won a junior boxing title.

In 1935 he moved to Mandatory Palestine and studied at the Mercaz HaRav and Hebron yeshivas in Jerusalem. He joined the Haganah during the Arab revolt. In 1938 he went to Britain to study law, earned a law degree in 1941 and qualified as a barrister in 1942.

He served as an intelligence officer in the British Army in World War II and then returned to Palestine. In the IDF he headed Military Intelligence twice and served as military attaché in Washington. He retired in 1962 as a major general.

After the Six-Day War he was military governor of the West Bank. He co-founded the law firm Herzog, Fox & Ne'eman in 1972 and was Israel's ambassador to the UN from 1975 to 1978, where he tore up the resolution equating Zionism with racism. He entered the Knesset for the Alignment in 1981.

He was elected president in 1983 and served two terms until 1993. As president he pardoned Shin Bet members in the Bus 300 affair and made the first presidential visit to West Germany. He died in 1997, and his son Isaac Herzog later became president.