Opposition leader Herzog calls to reinstate plaque on father's Belfast home
Former president Herzog's birthplace was vandalized with anti-Israel graffiti, exemplifying "disturbing mix of anti-Israel and anti-Jewish sentiment," Labor chairman says.
Authorities in Belfast removed a plaque on the birthplace of former president Chaim Herzog in the city, citing security concerns.
On Wednesday, Isaac Herzog said he “can only regret the decision, as my family’s history is intertwined with the history of Belfast and Jewish history in Belfast, where there is a unique Jewish community.”
Herzog’s father, Chaim, was born on Cliftonpark Avenue in Belfast in 1918 to Sarah Herzog, founder of the religious-Zionist women’s movement Emunah, and Irish Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Halevi Herzog, who eventually became chief rabbi of Israel.
The opposition leader pointed out that his grandfather is “revered for his role in the Irish War of Independence,” in which he supported the Irish Republican cause and earned the nickname the Sinn Féin Rabbi.
The Herzog family moved to British Mandate Palestine in 1935, and Chaim Herzog served in the British Army in World War II, participating in the liberation of several concentration camps, identifying a captured soldier as Heinrich Himmler and rising to the rank of major.
Chaim Herzog served as a member of Knesset and was ambassador to the UN, famously tearing up the resolution stating Zionism is equivalent to racism, before he became president in 1983, a position he held for 11 years. He died in 1997.
http://www.jpost.com/Diaspora/Opposition-leader-Herzog-calls-to-reinstate-plaque-on-fathers-Belfast-home-370938