Mordechai Piron

Mordechai Piron was born in 1921 in Vienna

Mordechai Piron was born Egon Pisk in Vienna on 28 December 1921. He was the only child of religious Jewish parents and grew up in the Leopoldstadt district. He attended a religious Jewish school and later a high school in Vienna.

In 1938 he came to the Land of Israel with the Youth Aliyah and studied at the Mikveh Israel school. He later studied at Yeshivat Mercaz HaRav and was ordained as a rabbi, then studied at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. In 1946 he married Ahuva Gardi, and they had 3 children.

He fought in the Haganah and joined the IDF in the War of Independence, where he worked on religious life in the military rabbinate. In 1971 he became the second chief military rabbi. During the Yom Kippur War he set up a rabbinical court to free the wives of missing soldiers to remarry.

After leaving the IDF, he served as a rabbi in Zurich. In 1987 he advised Foreign Minister Shimon Peres on Diaspora affairs. He published books and papers on Jewish thought and supported dialogue between religions.

In 2013 he received the title Yakir Yerushalayim. He died in Jerusalem on 28 May 2014.