Shlomo Goren; Fought Israeli-PLO Accord

Shlomo Goren, 77, a former chief rabbi of Israel and an outspoken critic of Israeli reconciliation with the PLO. Goren, who served as Israel’s chief rabbi from 1973 to 1983, was often at the center of controversy. A year ago, he issued a religious ruling that soldiers could refuse orders to dismantle Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank. “There is a law that overrides all others, and that is the law of settling Israel,” Goren said at the time. Goren’s call for disobedience was given special weight because he served as chief military chaplain during the 1967 Middle East war, reaching the rank of brigadier general. Shortly after the September, 1993 Israel-PLO accord on autonomy, Goren said that every Jew was commanded to kill PLO chief Yasser Arafat. In the 1967 war, Goren accompanied the Israeli troops that captured Arab East Jerusalem, including the Western Wall in the walled Old City. When the soldiers reached the wall, Judaism’s holiest site, Goren blew a shofar, or ram’s horn, in joy. In Jerusalem on Saturday of a heart attack.