Battles of the Bible

New Yrok: Random House, 1978. First edition. First Edition [Stated]. Hardcover. Very good in good dust jacket. DJ has some wear, tears, chips, and soiling.. 247, [1] p. Illustrations (some in color). errata slip laid in. Maps. Notes to the Text. Chronological Table. Index. From WIkipedia: "Chaim Herzog (17 September 1918 17 April 1997) was an Irish-born Israeli politician, soldier, lawyer and author who served as the sixth President of Israel. Herzog was born at Cliftonpark Avenue in Belfast, the son of notable Rabbi Yitzhak HaLevi Herzog, who was Chief Rabbi of Ireland from 1919 to 1937 (and later, of Palestine and Israel), and Sara (nee Hillman). The family home (from 1919) was at 33 Bloomfield Avenue, Portobello in Dublin, Ireland. His father, a fluent speaker of the Irish language, was known as "the Sinn Féin Rabbi" for his support of the First Dáil and the Irish Republican cause during the Irish War of Independence. Herzog studied at Wesley College, Dublin and was involved with the Federation of Zionist Youth and Habonim, the Labor-Zionist movement, during his teenage years. He immigrated to Palestine in 1935, and served in the Jewish paramilitary group Haganah during the Arab revolt of 1936 39. He went on to earn a degree in law at University College London, and then qualified as a barrister at Lincoln's Inn. He joined the British army during World War II, operating primarily in Germany as a tank commander in the Armoured Division. There, he was given his lifelong nickname of "Vivian" because the British could not pronounce the name, "Chaim". A Jewish soldier had volunteered that "Vivian" was the English equivalent of "Chaim." He was commissioned into the Intelligence Corps in 1943 and participated in the liberation of several concentration camps as well as identifying a captured German soldier as Heinrich Himmler. He left the Army in 1947 with the rank of Major. Immediately following the war, he returned to Palestine. After the establishment of the State of Israel, he fought in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, serving as an officer in the battles for Latrun. His intelligence experience during World War II was seen as a valuable asset, and he subsequently became head of the IDF Military Intelligence Branch, a position in which he served from 1948 to 1950 and again from 1959 to 1962. From 1950 to 1954, he served as defense attache at the Israeli Embassy in the United States. He retired from the IDF in 1962 with the rank of Major-General. After leaving the army, Herzog opened a private law practice. He returned to public life in 1967, when the Six-Day War broke out, as a military commentator for Kol Israel radio news. Following the capture of the West Bank, he was appointed Military Governor of East Jerusalem, and Judea and Samaria. In 1972 he went into partnership with Michael Fox and Yaakov Neeman, and established the law firm of Herzog, Fox & Neeman, one of the largest law firms in Israel. In 1975 Herzog was appointed Israel's Ambassador to the United Nations, in which capacity he served until 1978. During his term the UN adopted the "Zionism is Racism" resolution (General Assembly Resolution 3379), which Herzog condemned and symbolically tore up (as his father had done to one of the British white papers regarding the British Mandate in Palestine), saying: "For us, the Jewish people, this resolution based on hatred, falsehood and arrogance, is devoid of any moral or legal value." In recent years British historians headed by Simon Sebag-Montefiore have included this speech in a book on speeches that changed the world, which includes others by Martin Luther King, Jr, Nelson Mandela, Winston Churchill and John F. Kennedy. In the 1981 elections Herzog entered politics for the first time, winning a seat in the Knesset as a member of the Alignment, the predecessor to the Labour Party. On 22 March 1983, Herzog was elected by the Knesset to serve as the sixth President of Israel, by a vote of 61 to 57, against Menachem Elon, the candidate of the right and the government coalition. He assumed office on 5 May 1983 and served two five-year terms (then the maximum permitted by Israeli basic law), retiring from political life in 1993. As president of Israel, Herzog made a number of visits abroad, being.