President Isaac Herzog is a public official who has been working in the service of the State of Israel and its society for over twenty years. He was born in 1960 to Aura and Chaim Herzog, later Israel’s Sixth President. He served as an officer in the IDF Intelligence Corps, and after completing his law degree, worked as a lawyer, specializing in communications law. He served as the government secretary, a member of the Knesset, the minister of construction and housing, the minister of tourism, the minister of welfare and social services, and the minister of diaspora affairs. He was later elected the chairman of the Israeli Labor Party and served as the leader of the Opposition in the Knesset. For three years, Herzog served as the chairman of the Executive of the Jewish Agency for Israel. In July 2021, he was elected president by an unprecedented majority in the Knesset, and he entered office as the Eleventh President of Israel.
Isaac Herzog was born on September 22, 1960 (1 Tishrei 5721), in Tel Aviv, where he grew up and was educated. As a child, he received the nickname “Bougie,” by which he has been known ever since.
The Eleventh President was born to a family with deep and significant roots in the diplomatic, social, and religious history of the State of Israel and the Jewish People, starting many years before the state’s establishment.
Isaac Herzog was named after his grandfather, Rabbi Dr. Yitzhak Isaac Halevi Herzog, who was the Chief Rabbi of the Land of Israel and later the first Chief Rabbi of the State of Israel. Before that, he served as the Chief Rabbi of Ireland. Herzog’s grandmother, Rabbanit Sarah Herzog, was closely involved in charitable causes, a well-known social leader, and one of the founders of the women’s organization, Emunah. The Herzog Hospital in Jerusalem is named for her.
One of Rabbi and Rabbanit Herzog’s sons, Chaim, the father of President Isaac Herzog, served in a series of public offices, including as the head of the IDF Intelligence Corps at the rank of major-general, Israeli ambassador to the United Nations, and later, the Sixth President of the State of Israel, an office that he held for a decade (1983-1993). President Isaac Herzog’s mother, Aura Herzog (née Ambache), was the founder of the International Bible Contest and held numerous public positions, including as the founder and president of the Council for a Beautiful Israel. One of President Isaac Herzog’s uncles was Rabbi Dr. Yaakov Herzog, the director-general of the Prime Minister’s Office under Levi Eshkol and Golda Meir; another was Abba Eban (the husband of his maternal aunt, Suzy), who was Israel’s ambassador to the United States and the United Nations, Israel’s foreign minister (1966-1974), and one of the key figures behind the establishment of the Israeli diplomatic corps.
Isaac Herzog is the third of Aura and Chaim Herzog’s four children. His siblings are Joel, a businessman; Michael (Mike), a former IDF brigadier-general who now serves as Israel’s ambassador to the United States; and Ronit, a clinical psychologist and lecturer.
Isaac Herzog studied at the Tzahala and Moriah schools, and during middle school, he went to the state-religious Zeitlin School; he continued his high school studies at the Ramaz School in Manhattan, New York, during his father’s service as Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations.
Herzog performed his military service as an officer and commander at ten different bases in Unit 8200 of the IDF Intelligence Corps. Over the course of his reserve duty, he was promoted to the rank of major. He holds a law degree from Tel Aviv University and studied at Cornell University in New York. A lawyer by profession, Herzog was a senior partner at Herzog Fox & Neeman. During his work at the law firm, Herzog founded and headed its telecommunications and communications department, which became a leader in its field in Israel. When he entered the Knesset in 2003, Herzog retired from the law firm.
In August 1985, Herzog married Michal Afek, the daughter of a deeply rooted family of agriculturalists from Afula and Kfar Yona and members of Gdud HaAvoda. Michal’s father, Col. (res.) Shaul Afek, served in senior positions in the IDF, including as the commander of the Haifa District and Israeli military attaché to Brazil; her mother, Zvia, was a renowned educator. Michal, a lawyer and mediator by profession, who practiced law for a decade, proceeded to serve in several influential senior voluntary roles in the social and philanthropic sectors.
Isaac and Michal Herzog have three sons: Noam, Matan, and Roie .
In 1988-1990, Herzog was the secretary of the Socioeconomic Council, which brought together representatives of the government, the Histadrut, and employers. For three years, starting in 2000, Herzog headed the Israel Anti-Drug Authority.
Herzog forged his political career through the Labor Party, initially as an advisor to party leaders Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres. In July 1999, Herzog was appointed government secretary under Prime Minister Ehud Barak, a position that he held until March 2001.
Ahead of the elections to the Sixteenth Knesset, held in early 2003, Herzog was elected to the eleventh spot on the Labor Party list and entered the Knesset. During his term, he headed various caucuses and coordinated Opposition activity on the Knesset Finance Committee.
In late 2004, Herzog was chosen to serve in the government, and in January 2005, he was sworn in as the minister of housing and construction. During his term, he advanced the rehabilitation of underprivileged neighborhoods, helped Arab society, expanded the housing supply for the needy, and brought about the end of the housing shortage crisis in the Negev. As the minister of housing and construction, Herzog initiated a program to enable and encourage the residents of social housing in areas of national priority to buy their own homes. After the execution of the Disengagement Plan Implementation Law, he also worked to care for the residents of Gush Katif and northern Samaria uprooted from their homes.
In May 2006, Herzog was sworn in as the minister of tourism. During and after the Second Lebanon War, he also served as a member of the Security Cabinet and was among Israel’s most high-profile spokespersons in the international media. As a minister, he worked after the war to rehabilitate the tourism industry in northern Israel and across the country, following the heavy damage it suffered in the war. At the same time, he promoted global tourism to Israel through innovative initiatives, worked to improve service in the tourism industry, and promoted tourism projects across all sections and communities of Israeli society.
Of all his government roles, President Herzog considers his term as the minister of welfare and social services, which began in March 2007 and lasted for four years, as the most important and significant. As the minister of welfare and social services, Herzog addressed a range of social issues, including by formulating a plan to assist Holocaust survivors, integrating people with disabilities into society, improving the status of social workers, leading a national plan to support children and youth at risk and in distress, assisting the elderly, the underprivileged, and the poor in society, and fighting to eliminate poverty. Herzog also formulated the “Savings for Each Child” plan, which was eventually put into practice, and led the way to discounts on medications and upgrading nursing care for the elderly in Israel. Herzog initiated legislation that allowed people with disabilities to work without losing their disability benefits and increased state budgetary support for social organizations.
In parallel with his term at the Ministry of Welfare and Social Services, Herzog served as the minister for diaspora affairs, society, and the fight against antisemitism, an issue that has been close to his heart his whole life.
In November 2013, Herzog was elected the chairman of the Labor Party, and he later served as the leader of the Opposition in the Nineteenth Knesset and then also in the Twentieth Knesset. Ahead of elections to the Twentieth Knesset, Herzog announced his intention to run for the role of prime minister. The joint electoral list that he presented with HaTnuah chairwoman and former foreign minister, Tzipi Livni, won twenty-four seats in the elections, an achievement that the Labor Party had not seen since the premiership of Yitzhak Rabin.
In June 2018, the Board of Governors of the Jewish Agency for Israel unanimously elected Isaac Herzog as the chairman of the Jewish Agency Executive, and thus, for three years, Herzog headed the biggest Jewish organization in the world (which was, of course, the pre-state government ahead of the establishment of the State of Israel). During his tenure, the Jewish Agency brought 85,000 new Jewish immigrants to Israel from 90 countries, including thousands at the height of the COVID crisis and many others in various rescue missions.
Under Herzog’s leadership, the Jewish Agency was deeply involved in the issue of the security of Jewish communities against a backdrop of a worrying spike in antisemitism as well as in building community resilience around the Jewish world and in Israel in the wake of the damage caused by the pandemic. He dedicated his term to strengthening the strategic bridges between Israel and Diaspora Jewry, emphasizing the strengthening of Jewish identity and giving Diaspora Jews positive and in-depth exposure to the diverse mosaic of Israeli society.
Herzog has written two books about economics, welfare, and society in Israel, and has published hundreds of articles, lectures, reviews, and opinion columns on a range of issues all around the world.
In May 2021, Herzog announced his candidacy for the role of the Eleventh President of the State of Israel. In the election on June 2, 2021, Herzog won the support of 87 members of the Knesset and thus made history by securing the widest support in any Israeli presidential election. Herzog swore allegiance and entered the Presidency on July 7, 2021.
In his inaugural address in the Knesset, Herzog spelled out his vision and emphasized, among other things, his commitment to work to heal the fissures that threaten the future of Israeli society and the state, saying: “This is our responsibility, all of us. This is the mission of our generation. This is my calling. This is the mission of my presidency: to do whatever it takes to rebuild hope anew.”
