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Born in Belfast, Ireland, the son of notable Rabbi Yitzhak HaLevi Herzog , he immigrated to Palestine in 1935, and served in the Jewish paramilitary group HaganahThe Haganah (Hebrew: "Defense") was a Zionist military organization in Palestine during the British mandate of Palestine from 1920 to 1948. The Haganah later became the Israel Defense Forces Israel's army. Origins The predecessor of Haganah was the Ha-Sho during the Arab revoltIn 1936, the Arab leadership in the British Mandate of Palestine, led by Haj Amin al-Husayni, declared a general strike to protest the demographic and otherwise impact brought by Jewish immigration to Palestine. The strike rapidly deteriorated into a viol of 1936Events January-February January 15 The first building to be completely covered in glass is completed in Toledo, Ohio, for the Owens-Illinois Glass Company. January 20 Death of George V of the United Kingdom. His son Edward VIII succeedes him as King of th- 38Events January -June January 3 The March of Dimes is established by Franklin Delano Roosevelt. January 11 Frances Moulton is the first woman to become president of a US national bank. January 20 Wedding of king Farouk I of Egypt and Farida Zulficar in Cai.
He went on to earn a degree in law, but joined the British army during World War II, operating primarily in GermanyThe Federal Republic of Germany ( German: Bundesrepublik Deutschland is one of the world's leading industrialized countries, located in the middle of the European Union. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark and the Baltic Sea, to the east. 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 campA concentration camp is a large detention centre created for political opponents, aliens, specific ethnic or religious groups, civilians of a critical war-zone, or other groups of people, often during a war. The term refers to situations where the internes.
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 PlanOn 29 November 1947 the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine a plan to resolve the Arab-Jewish conflict in the British Mandate of Palestine, was approved by the United Nations General Assembly, at the UN World Headquarters in New York. The plan par creating the state of IsraelThis article discusses the State of Israel. For other meanings of Israel see Israel (disambiguation). The State of Israel Medinat Yisrael in Hebrew, Daulat Israil in Arabic) is a country in the Middle East on the eastern edge of the Mediterranean Sea., 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 Israeli defense attache 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 did enter official public life again, becoming the first military governor of the newly-acquired territory.
In 1975 he was appointed Israel's Ambassador to the United Nations, in which capacity he served until 1978. In 1981 he entered politics for the first time, winning election to the Knesset as a member of the Labour Party.
In 1983 he was elected as 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.
He also authored several books on the historical events in which he was involved, including: