Isaac Herzog

Isaac Ha-Levi Herzog was the Ashkenazic chief rabbi of Mandate Palestine from 1937 to 1948, succeeding Abraham Isaac Kook, and of Israel from 1948 until his death. Born in Lomza, Poland, he was brought to England at the age of nine when his father was appointed communal rabbi in Leeds. Although he never attended a yeshiva, he became a major figure in rabbinic scholarship. He studied at the Sorbonne and at the University of London, where he received a doctorate for a thesis on the type of blue dye used in ancient Israel for tsitsit, knowledge of which was subsequently lost. From 1916 to 1936, he held rabbinic posts in Ireland, where he established close ties with leading Irish nationalists and earned the sobriquet “the Sinn Féin rabbi.”