Belfast removes Herzog plaque after attacks

A marker commemorating the Belfast birthplace of the late Israeli president Chaim Herzog has been removed following several anti-Semitic attacks.

Chaim Herzog (photo credit: CC-BY-SA Hidro, Wikimedia Commons)

The blue plaque honoring Herzog, Israel’s president from 1983 to 1993, was taken down in the Irish capital out of concern for the safety of those living nearby, the Belfast Telegraph reports.

“Attacks have included the scrawling of anti-Israeli graffiti on the building and items being thrown at the plaque and the house,” Brian Kingston, a local official, tells the Telegraph. “Recently some youths were stopped in the process of trying to remove the plaque with a crowbar.”

The removal of the plaque, which was mounted in 1998, came a month after a north Belfast synagogue was vandalized.

Born in 1918, Herzog immigrated to British Mandate Palestine in 1935 and served in the Haganah, later fighting in Israel’s War of Independence. He also fought in the British army during Word War II.

Before being elected president, he served as Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations and as a Knesset member. He died in 1997.

His son, Isaac Herzog, is the head of Israel’s Labor party.

— JTA