Goren, Shlomo (1917-1994)

He was brought to Palestine in 1925, where his father was one of the founders of Kfar Hasidim. At the age of twelve he began his studies at the Hebron Yeshivah in Jerusalem. At seventeen he published his first work --- on the Mishneh Torah of Maimonides. Four years later he published Sha 'arei Taharah on the laws of the mikveh. He joined the Haganah in 1936 and fought in the Jerusalem area during the War of Independence. He was appointed a chaplain of the army, qualified as a paratrooper, and rose to the rank of brigadier-general.

During the Sinai Campaign (1956) and the Six-Day War (1967) he was a familiar and much-admired sight in the front lines of battle. He often risked his life to serve the troops or to retrieve the bodies of fallen soldiers for proper burial. The military chaplaincy was put on an organized basis by Rabbi Goren. He devised arrangements for kosher food, festival observances and prayer services even at remote outposts. He wrote many responsa on questions of religious observance in war and peace in a world of technological progress.

In 1961 he was awarded the Israel Prize for Jewish scholarship for the first volume of his commentary on the Jerusalem Talmud. In 1968 he was elected Ashkenazi chief rabbi of Tel Aviv-Jaffa, and in 1973, upon the retirement of Rabbi Unterman, Ashkenazi chief rabbi of Israel, serving until 1983.

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