29 Facts About Shlomo Goren

Shlomo Goren, was a Polish-born Israeli rabbi and Talmudic scholar.

In 1948, Goren founded and served as the first head of the Military Rabbinate of the Israel Defense Forces, a position he held until 1968.

Shlomo Goren was born into an Orthodox Ashkenazi Jewish family in the town of Zambrow, Poland.

Shlomo Goren's family was among the founders of Kfar Hasidim, an Orthodox Jewish village located near the city of Haifa, where Goren grew up.

From 1940 until 1944, Shlomo Goren was enrolled at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where he studied philosophy, mathematics, and classics.

Shlomo Goren was a chaplain of the Carmeli Brigade at this time.

Shlomo Goren strongly opposed the idea of separated religious and secular military units and worked for the integration of all IDF soldiers in the same units.

Shlomo Goren was the most prominent halakhic authority involved in rulings for religious soldiers regarding their military service.

Shlomo Goren used the opportunity to help establish and organize the military chaplaincy's framework, streamlining processes to get soldiers accommodations for kosher food and prayer services.

Shlomo Goren personally wrote a new prayerbook to accommodate the different prayer styles used by various Jewish ethnic subgroups serving in the IDF.

Shlomo Goren served in the Suez Crisis of 1956 and the Six-Day War of 1967, following which he was promoted to the rank of general.

On 7 June 1967, when Israeli troops captured East Jerusalem from Jordanian control, Shlomo Goren gave a prayer of thanksgiving, which was broadcast live to the entire country.

The most famous of these photographs shows Shlomo Goren blowing the shofar against the background of the Western Wall.

Shlomo Goren attracted many admirers through his passion for Religious Zionism and his combining of Zionist activism with a commitment to Judaism and Jewish scholarship.

Shlomo Goren called the vehement attacks against him a "moral and religious scandal".

In November 1972, Shlomo Goren presided over a panel of nine dayanim to review the case of Sgt.

Shlomo Goren's reversal was fiercely opposed, primarily by the Agudat Yisrael and Rav Ovadiah Yosef.

Shlomo Goren spent most of his term as Chief Rabbi of Israel attempting to reconcile Jewish religious teachings with modern problems of the state, including advancements in technological progress and various high-profile conversion cases.

Shlomo Goren repeatedly advocated or supported building a Third Temple on the Temple Mount from the 1960s onward, and was associated with various messianic projects involving the Temple Mount.

Shlomo Goren was well known for his controversial positions concerning Jewish sovereignty over the Temple Mount.

On 15 August 1967, two months after the Six-Day War, Shlomo Goren led a group of fifty Jews onto the Temple Mount, where, fighting off protesting Muslim guards and Israeli police, they defiantly held a prayer service.

Shlomo Goren continued to pray for many years in the Makhkame building overlooking the Temple Mount, where he conducted yearly High Holiday services.

Shlomo Goren's call for the establishment of a synagogue on the Temple Mount has subsequently been reiterated by his brother-in-law, the former Chief Rabbi of Haifa, She'ar Yashuv Cohen.

Shlomo Goren was sharply criticized by the Israeli Defense Ministry, who, noting Shlomo Goren's senior rank, called his behavior inappropriate.

The charge, made by General Narkiss, an eyewitness, in an interview with Haaretz that Rabbi Shlomo Goren calling for the destruction of the mosques has been used to claim there is a Jewish extremism comparable to Islamic extremism.

Shlomo Goren made headlines after his term as Chief Rabbi had expired.

Shlomo Goren was deeply opposed to the Oslo Accords and in 1993 declared that it was halakhically forbidden to dismantle any settlements in the Biblical Land of Israel, and encouraged any soldiers ordered to do so to refuse.

Shlomo Goren was a manager of a Kollel, where he met and educated Rabbi Joel Landau.

Shlomo Goren was a strict vegetarian after he visited a slaughterhouse in Canada in 1967 to perform an inspection of kashrut.