Ja'akov Duke
Ja'akov Herzog ( Hebrew יעקב הרצוג ; English mostly Yaakov , German also Jacob David Herzog ; born on December 21, 1921 in Dublin , Ireland ; died March 6, 1972 in Jerusalem ) was an Israeli rabbi and diplomat .
Life
Ja'akov Herzog was born in Dublin in 1921 as the second son of the great rabbi Isaak HaLevy Herzog there . His brother, who was three years older than him, was the later Israeli President Chaim Herzog , and one nephew is Yitzchak Herzog . The young Ja'akov attended a Methodist school and, after graduating from high school, went to London in 1937, where he obtained a bachelor's degree.
In 1939 he followed his family to the British Mandate of Palestine. He was trained as a rabbi at the Harry Fischel Institute in Jerusalem and studied law at the Hebrew University .
In 1946 he and his father traveled through war-ravaged Europe for six months, with the aim of bringing young Jewish DPs from Italian and Eastern European camps to Palestine, but also of organizing relief supplies for the country. While his father negotiated as a spiritual authority, Ja'akov Herzog acted as the practical organizer of the numerous meetings with heads of government, the military, ministers and clergy.
In 1947 he became a member of Shai, the Haganah intelligence arm , for a period of time , mainly to establish contacts with intellectual anti-Semites in the British Mandate. Although he could not provide any decisive military information, his work up to 1948 brought him valuable political contacts in the yishuv , in particular his first acquaintance with David Ben-Gurion . He also acted as a liaison between the Grand Rabbi of Palestine and the British Army Rabbi.
He was ordained a rabbi in 1948 and worked in the Ministry of Religious Affairs after Israel gained independence. He made numerous contacts outside of the Jewish clergy, and in 1949 and 1950 acquired large amounts of land on behalf of the state from the non-Jewish churches, especially the Greek Orthodox Church , with which he had established good relationships. Initially, the acquired properties in and around Jerusalem were designed as annual leases, then Herzog brokered the purchase of the land with the impoverished Orthodox Church and the reluctant Israeli finance ministry, so that central properties in Jerusalem came into Israeli possession. At the end of 1949, Herzog is said to have advised Ben-Gurion to take possession of Jerusalem as the Israeli capital, which he decided to do a few days later. In trilateral talks with the Vatican and the Greek Orthodox Church on the status of Jerusalem as an international zone, which was negotiated at the time, he sided with the Greek Orthodox, whom he imagined that Rome would dominate if it came to internationalization. His role as a diplomat was recognized in the Ministry of Religious Affairs and he was appointed as a religious advisor to Foreign Minister Moshe Sharet in October 1949 . During negotiations at the UN, Herzog was part of the Israeli delegation. The controversial question of the capital city and the international reactions to it occupied Herzog until 1953. The later Patriarch Benediktus (1892–1980) praised Herzog as follows: “Intellectual and lawyer, rabbi and diplomat, a man of international understanding and world peace, an outstanding negotiator and very much good friend"
He married pharmacist Pnina Sharuch on February 14, 1952 after two years of advertising. The wedding ceremony was performed by his father. The couple had three children together: Shira (born 1953) and Eliezra (1955) and Yitzhak (1967).
On April 4, 1954, he was appointed director of relations with the United States in the State Department of Israel. In this position he again advised Prime Minister Moshe Sharet, but represented the position of Ben-Gurion, whom he had already come to appreciate years earlier. After Ben-Gurion took office again, Herzog acted as personal advisor to the Prime Minister during the Suez Crisis in 1956.
After Herzog had worked at the Israeli embassy in Washington, DC from 1957 to 1960 , Foreign Minister Golda Meir prevented his appointment as the successor to the important post of ambassador in favor of Avraham Harman for party political reasons . After Herzog had organized Ben-Gurion's internationally acclaimed visit to Washington in March 1960, he was instead appointed Israeli ambassador to Canada . He held this office from 1960 to 1963. At the University of Ottawa he received a doctorate in international law. During this time there was also a famous public debate with the British historian Arnold J. Toynbee in January 1961: Israel's existence ran counter to its theory of the rise and fall of civilization, and Toynbee also criticized Israel's policy of occupation. Toynbee, invited by Herzog, was defeated in the debate and also revised his attitude towards the young state.
He returned to Israel in the summer of 1963 and was appointed Deputy Director General of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In 1966 he decided to end the diplomatic service in view of the offer to become the new Grand Rabbi in London. After a health collapse and a cure in Geneva , he reversed this decision six months later.
From now until his death - during the terms of office of Levi Eschkol and Golda Meir - Herzog was director general in the office of the Israeli prime minister. For years he advocated state aid to help Palestinians emigrate to neighboring Arab countries. He is considered one of the architects of the relationship between Israel and the Vatican after the Six Day War ended in 1967. In London he made acquaintance and good relations with the Jordanian King Hussein , which resulted in a secret agreement with the hostile neighboring country and thus undermined the Arab boycott . The regular meetings were disguised as fishing trips. He also sought a secret reconciliation with Lebanese Christians. He was known or friends with numerous other well-known international personalities, including John F. Kennedy and Éamon de Valera .
literature
- Michael Bar-Zohar: Yaacov Herzog. A biography. Halban Publishers 2005. ISBN 978-1870015-93-6 . Digitized
Web links
- Short biography (English) ( Memento of 21 November 2008 at the Internet Archive )
Individual evidence
- ↑ Michael Bar-Zohar, Chapter 5, Note 35; the Patriarch is quoted from his memorial address of June 21, 1972
- ↑ Lawrence Freiman: Don't fall off the rocking horse: an autobiography
- ↑ Moshe Shemesh: On Two Parallel Tracks — The Secret Jordanian-Israeli Talks (July 1967 – September 1973)
- ↑ Yair Sheleg: This is how we ruined Toynbee's Theory , Jan. 24, 2007
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Duke, Ja'akov |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Hartzūk, Yāmākūf; Duke, Yaakov David; Duke, Jacob David |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Israeli rabbi and diplomat |
| DATE OF BIRTH | December 21, 1921 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Dublin , Ireland |
| DATE OF DEATH | March 6, 1972 |
| Place of death | Jerusalem |