Шломо Горен: Жизнь и деятельность израильского раввина и военачальника.

Polish born Israeli rabbi (1917–1994)

Shlomo Goren (; 3 February 1917 – 29 October 1994), was a Polish born Israeli rabbi and Talmudic scholar. An Orthodox Jew and Religious Zionist, he was considered a foremost rabbinical legal authority on matters of Jewish religious law (halakha). In 1948, Goren founded and served as the first head of the Military Rabbinate of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), a position he held until 1968. Subsequently, he served as Chief Rabbi of Tel Aviv–Jaffa between 1968 and his 1972 election as the Chief Rabbi of Israel; the third Ashkenazi Jew to hold office. After his 1983 retirement from the country's Chief Rabbinate, Goren served as the head of a yeshiva that he established in Jerusalem. While serving in the IDF, Goren fought in three of the Arab–Israeli wars, and wrote several award winning books on halakha.

Goren was born into an Orthodox Ashkenazi Jewish family in the town of Zambrów, Poland. His parents, Avraham Goronczik and Haya Tzipora, emigrated in 1925 to join the Yishuv in what was then the British Mandate for Palestine. His family was among the founders of Kfar Hasidim, an Orthodox Jewish village located near the city of Haifa, where Goren grew up. As a young boy, he was sent to Jerusalem to study at the Etz Chaim Yeshiva. Later, when he was 12, he became the youngest student to enter the Hebron Yeshiva, where he was identified as a Judaic prodigy. His first book, dealing with korbanot (ritual sacrifices) at the former Temple in Jerusalem, was published when he was 17. At the same age, he received rabbinic ordination.

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. Goren continued to pray for many years in the Makhkame building overlooking the Temple Mount, where he conducted yearly High Holiday services. His 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. Goren was sharply criticized by the Israeli Defense Ministry, who, noting Goren's senior rank, called his behavior inappropriate. The episode led the Chief Rabbis of the time to restate the accepted laws of Judaism that no Jews were allowed on the mount due to issues of ritual impurity. The secular authorities welcomed this ruling as it preserved the status quo with the Waqf, the Islamic authority. Disagreeing with his colleagues, Goren continually maintained that Jews were not only permitted, but commanded, to ascend and pray on the mount. The actual question of Goren's radicalism remains controversial. One widely repeated story about Goren claims that shortly after the Israeli capture of the Temple Mount, the rabbi either argued that Israel should destroy the al Aqsa Mosque and Dome of the Rock, or simply said that it would have been a "good thing" if they had been accidentally destroyed. The charge, made by General Narkiss, an eyewitness, in an interview with Haaretz that Rabbi Goren calling for the destruction of the mosques has been used to claim there is a Jewish extremism comparable to Islamic extremism. Goren's close assistant Rabbi Menachem Ha Cohen, who was with Rabbi Goren throughout that historic day, denied ever hearing Goren make such a remark. Goren himself personally denied this charge several times. However, Goren did make a speech later that year to a military convention, recorded and later broadcast on Israel's army radio, in which he said of the Dome of the Rock and the al Aqsa Mosque that "Certainly we should have blown it up. It is a tragedy that we did not do so." After retiring from official duties as Chief Rabbi, Goren opened and lead the Idra Yeshiva near the Western Wall. The yeshiva changed and was renamed after Goren's death.

In the summer of 1983, Goren and several other rabbis joined Rabbi Yehuda Getz, who worked for the Religious Affairs Ministry at the Western Wall, in touring a chamber underneath the mount that Getz had illegally excavated, where the two claimed to have seen the Ark of the Covenant. The excavation was shortly discovered and resulted in a massive brawl between young Jews and Arabs in the area. The access tunnel to the chamber was quickly sealed with concrete by Israeli police. The sealed entrance can be seen from the Western Wall Tunnel, which opened to the public in 1996.

Goren, who was a strong supporter of alliances between Evangelical Christians and Israel, also denounced meetings between Israel and the Holy See, calling it "blasphemy beyond expression."

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

Goren has spoken out against Jewish terrorism. In 1982 he and Rabbi Ovadia Yosef officially condemned a shooting attack on the Temple Mount by an American immigrant which resulted in the death of two Muslims and the wounding of several others. In a joint statement released by the Chief Rabbis, they declared that "We and the entire Jewish people attack and deplore the criminal act of murder in every possible way. Through this abominable act [Alan] Goodman has removed himself from the Jewish people ".

Goren was a manager of a Kollel, where he met and educated Rabbi Joel Landau. Landau helped him in managing the Kollel. Following his term as Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi, he founded the Idra Yeshiva near the Western Wall, which he headed until his passing.

Goren was married to Tzfia Cohen, the daughter of prominent Religious Zionist Rabbi David Cohen, the Nazir of Jerusalem, and the sister of Rabbi She'ar Yashuv Cohen, former deputy mayor of Jerusalem and later Chief Rabbi of Haifa. Both Goren's father in law and brother in law were also prominent rabbinical vegetarians. psychologist Drorit Tamari;

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

In 1961, Goren was awarded the Israel Prize in Rabbinical literature.