CHAIM HERZOG was an Irishman, a lawyer, a soldier, a diplomat, a businessman, a politician and a statesman who was twice President of Israel. He died last week, only three days after his memoirs had been published in Britain and Ireland. They had already appeared last year in the United States. He had been expected to visit Dublin in the near future, he had many friends here many of them from the time he had lived in Dublin between 1919 and 1935 there his father, Isaac Herzog, was Chief Rabbi.
These memoirs have to be reviewed in context. They were written by the quintessential insider in Israeli politics and society - a man who served as head of Israeli Intelligence at the age of 29, and who had been present, in one capacity or another, at nearly all the major, and all the tragic, events in the history of the young St ate of Israel. Committed history it may be, but these memoirs shed light on the philosophy and on the career of a remarkable figure in the history of the latter part of the 20th century.
Naturally, many Irish readers would have liked, for the record, if nothing else, to see more space in the memoirs devoted to his life in Dublin. But laconic as Herzog may be, the early pages of his book provide a compact picture of Jewish life in Ireland from the foundation of the state until his departure in 1935. Born in Belfast in 1918. Herzog moved to Dublin when in 1919 his father became Chief Rabbi of what was to become the Irish Free State three years later.
Chaim Herzog's first "vivid memory" of Dublin was in 1922, when as an "inquisitive" and "mischievous" toddler he wandered out into the front garden of their home in Bloom field load to watch a battle between Free State troopers and irregulars who were fighting each other from the rooftops "A man driving a horse and cart was shot dead in front of me and the windows of Williams's food shop across from the house were blown in. As soldiers beat on the doors with their rifle butts, his mother took him and his younger brother Jacob down to the kitchen and locked them in a toilet. His father calmly left the front door open.
Herzog was raised in a very political house. His father was an open artisan of the Irish cause" and pleaded with prisoners on hunger strike to come off their fast. He was a friend of William T. Cosgrave and a close friend of Eamon de Valera, who, when in opposition, used to visit the Herzog house, with Robert Briscoe and unburden his heart to my father". That friendship endured even after Herzog was made the Chief Rabbi of Palestine in 1936 and left Ireland the following year.
Chaim Herzog, together with his brother Jacob went first to Alexandra and then moved to Wesley. Both had excellent academic records his brother was very brilliant, and became an international lawyer, a diplomat and adviser to Israeli prime ministers. He was also invited to become the Chief Rabbi of the British and the Commonwealth - a job he had decided to take after, reflect in upon the matter in a friends house in Dublin for a week. But his health deteriorated rapidly and he died soon after wards, before faking up the post.
Herzog recalls one story involving his father and his good friend Cardinal Joseph MacRory of Armagh. At a state dinner in Dublin Castle, Rabbi Herzog ate nothing but fruit and was reproached by the cardinal for not trying an excellent ham which was being served. Let us discuss this at your wedding, the Rabbi smilingly replied.
Herzog writes of what it was to be Jewish in Ireland: "Ireland had no history of anti Semitism, and while I did not feel outcast, I did feel different. I was always aware that somewhere in the background I was being judged by different standards." He left Ireland for Palestine in 1935 only to return briefly in the war years when he was stationed in Northern Ireland and was commissioned as a member of the Black Watch.
For the rest of his life he retained his Dublin accent a keen interest in colleges' rugby and a deep affection for Ireland which he displayed on numerous occasions doing his long public career. He was military attache to Washington after 1949. When he discovered that the Irish embassy had no military attache he obligingly stood in his Israeli uniform in the reviewing line with Ambassador John Hearne at the latter's official St Patrick's Day reception. If was a good way to get himself known in Senator McCarthy's Washington, where Americans seemed to see Commie spies under every leaf of every Israeli tree.
In 1983, when he first heard the news that he had been elected President of Israel, his mind flashed, back to Dublin, where my father had imparted such a love of Jewish tradition and history". He makes a short mention of his official visit to Ireland in 1985 where he had with the help of an Irish colonel and a lieutenant colonel serving in the Lebanon translated the opening remarks of his seven speeches into Irish. The visit was "a genuine success", according to the Irish Times. A park in Dublin now hears his name.
In 1987, Herzog became the first Israeli President to visit Germany. In all, he made forty five state visits during his two terms as president. Concluding his memoirs, Herzog writes: The tragedies that befell the Jewish people in my life time have no equal. But our victories and achievements have surpassed the dreams of generations. That is why one can dream, one should dream. One must dream.
This book is written in a committed, insider vein; one might have wished that he had settled down to the task of writing earlier, with the archives about him. But this is a good book in its genre and if tells much about the life of a remarkable Irishman who came from an even more remarkable family.