Yitzchak HaLevi Herzog

Rabbi Yitzchak HaLevi Herzog was a Talmudic scholar and leading decisor of Jewish law, born in 1888 in Łomża, then part of Russian Poland. His family later settled in the British Isles, where he combined traditional Torah learning with university study. His research into tekhelet, the ancient blue dye of the tzitzit, earned him a doctorate from the University of London. He served as rabbi in Belfast and then Dublin, becoming the first Chief Rabbi of the Irish Free State, before moving to Jerusalem in 1936 as Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Mandatory Palestine and, from 1948, of the new State of Israel. Among his writings are the responsa collection Heichal Yitzchak and the Talmudic studies gathered in Torat Ha-Ohel. He received the Israel Prize in 1958 and died in 1959. His son Chaim and grandson Isaac each later served as president of Israel.