Military Career
Goren's career was characterized by a commitment to the Religious Zionist values of his youth. He volunteered for the Haganah in 1936, and served as a chaplain for the Jerusalem area during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, during which he tested for and qualified as an IDF paratrooper. Goren was a Chaplain of the Carmeli Brigade during the war. He immediately after the Israeli War of Independence often at great personal risk engaged in the collecting of the bodies and giving proper burial to soldiers whose remains had been left in the field. He strongly opposed the idea of separate religious and secular units and worked for the integration of all soldiers in united Army units. He was the most prominent Halakhist involved in rulings for religious soldiers regarding their Army service. Goren was eventually promoted to the rank of Brigadier-General.
Following the establishment of the state of Israel, Goren was appointed Chief Rabbi of the Military Rabbinate of the IDF with the rank of Major-General, a position he held until 1968. Rabbi 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. Goren personally wrote a new prayerbook to accommodate the different prayer styles used by various ethnic groups serving in the army.
Goren also served in the 1956 Suez Crisis and the 1967 Six Day War, where he was promoted to a full General. Goren was on hand during the capture of East Jerusalem on 7 June 1967, where he gave a prayer of thanksgiving broadcast live to the entire country. Shortly afterwards Goren, blowing a shofar and carrying a Torah scroll, held the first Jewish prayer session at the Western Wall since 1948. The event was one of the defining moments of the war, and several photographs of Goren, surrounded by soldiers in prayer, have since become famous around the world and particularly in Israel. The most famous photograph shows Goren blowing the Shofar against the background of the Western Wall.
Read more about this topic: Shlomo Goren
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