Major-General Chaim Herzog (September 17, 1918 – April 17, 1997) is an Israeli politician, general, lawyer and author who served as the sixth President of Israel between 1983 and 1993.
Born in Belfast and raised predominantly in Dublin, the son of Ireland's Chief Rabbi Yitzhak HaLevi Herzog, he immigrates to Mandatory Palestine in 1935 and serves in the Haganah Jewish paramilitary group during the 1936–39 Arab revolt.
As an officer in the British Army during the Second World War, he received the nickname "Vivian" because the British cannot pronounce "Chaim".
He returns to Palestine after the war and, following the end of the British Mandate and Israel's Declaration of Independence in 1948, operates in the battles for Latrun during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War.
He retires from the Israel Defense Forces in 1962 with the rank of major-general.
After leaving the military, Herzog practices law.
In 1972 he is a co-founder of Herzog, Fox & Ne'eman, which will become one of Israel's largest law firms.
Between 1975 and 1978 he serves as Israel's Permanent Representative to the United Nations, in which capacity he repudiates UN General Assembly Resolution 3379—the "Zionism is Racism" resolution—and symbolically tears it up before the assembly.
Herzog enters politics in the 1981 elections, winning a Knesset seat as a member of the Alignment.
Two years later, in March 1983, he is elected to the largely ceremonial role of President.
He serves for two five-year terms before retiring in 1993.
He dies four years later and is buried on Mount Herzl, Jerusalem.
His son Isaac Herzog leads the Israeli Labor Party and the parliamentary Opposition in the Knesset between 2013 and 2017.
