ISAAC HERZOG is set to become Israel’s 11th president after winning the presidential election against Miriam Peretz in a secret ballot among the country’s 120 lawmakers June 2, following in the footsteps of his father, Chaim Herzog, the nation’s sixth president (1983-1993). He will officially replace outgoing President Reuven Rivlin next month, with his seven-year term beginning July 9. Known by his nickname “Bougie,” the 60-year-old also made history with the largest victory — 87 to 27 votes, three abstentions. Herzog’s opponent was Miriam Peretz, a prize-winning educator and Moroccan immigrant. She started life in Israel in a transit camp and worked her way up to a run for president. If she had been elected, she would have been Israel’s first woman president. In her concession speech, Peretz wholeheartedly threw her support behind Herzog — “his success is our success” — and promised to continue her mission to heal the divides in her adopted homeland. “I plan to be everyone’s president,” Herzog said after the vote, referring to the broad spectrum of political parties in Israel. “To listen to any position and listen to any person.” He stressed the importance of building “bridges of agreements … within us and with our brothers and sisters in the Diaspora.” According to Herzog, “the challenges are great and must not be underestimated. It is essential to tend to the bleeding wounds in our society; we must defend Israel’s international standing and its good name among the nations; combat antisemitism and hatred of Israel; protect the pillars of our democracy.” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu congratulated Herzog on his election as Israel’s next president. “I wish him great success on behalf of all Israel’s citizens. I thank Miriam Peretz for her honorable candidacy and I am convinced that she will continue to contribute to Israeli society, as she has done all her life.” Netanyahu lauded Herzog for representing Israel “in a manner that arouses respect and even admiration around the world and also within the country” and said that he is “certain that he will continue exactly in this way.” Defense Minister Benny Gantz also extended his congratulations to Herzog on being elected president. “I have no doubt that you will work to bring love and unity to the citizens of Israel, as well as helping strengthen Israel’s security, and to strengthen ties with our brothers in the Diaspora.” The role of the president of Israel is considered a ceremonial one, but past presidents who held the position have molded the part to their traits and aspirations. The president is tasked with tapping a political party leader to form governing coalitions after parliamentary elections. Israel has held four national elections in the past two years amid a protracted political crisis. The president also has the power to grant pardons — creating a potentially sensitive situation as Netanyahu stands trial for a series of corruption charges. Herzog is as close to Israeli aristocracy as it gets. He is already familiar with the layout of the President’s Residence in Jerusalem as the son of Irish-born Chaim Herzog, Israel’s sixth president who served a decade-long two terms from 1983 to 1993. Before that, Herzog Sr. served as Israel’s U.N. representative for three years. He is also nephew of Abba Eben, the legendary former foreign minister. Herzog’s grandfather, Rabbi Yitzhak Halevi Herzog, was both the first chief rabbi of Ireland, for over a decade, and then Ashkenazi chief rabbi of British Mandatory Palestine/Israel from 1936 to 1959. After attending elite schools in the United States, thanks to his father’s U.N. post, Herzog served in army intelligence, went to Tel Aviv University Law School and joined the storied law firm founded by his father, Herzog, Fox & Ne’eman, before pivoting to politics with the Labor Party. His political career began as Prime Minister Ehud Barak’s Cabinet secretary between 1999 and 2000, then running for the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, on the Labor slate between 2003 and 2018, climbing the ladder with various ministerial posts until ascending to the Labor Party leadership from 2013 to 2018 — a period that climaxed with his unsuccessful run for prime minister in 2015. After losing the party leadership, in 2018 he was named chairman of the Jewish Agency, the world’s largest Jewish nonprofit, a role that helped him continue to cultivate political connections and to take the stage nationally and internationally with ceremonial flourish. This all served the purpose of a long audition for the job of president, along with an effort to “warm up” his persona with plenty of photographs and videos of him embracing new immigrants to Israel. Intelligent and articulate, Herzog suffered throughout his political career due to his perceived lacking the warmth and common touch current Israeli President Rivlin has in spades. His polite and soft-spoken style has often been mocked as weak in Israel’s alpha-male political culture. These qualities proved to be his downfall as a retail politician, combined with the absence of a Netanyahu-esque “fire in the belly” drive to be prime minister at all costs. Herzog made the case that his diplomatic manner, education, experience and international sophistication were well-suited to the role of president, perhaps hoping he could follow in the footsteps of fellow left-wing politician Shimon Peres, who was far more beloved as president than he ever was in the Knesset. At the end of May, some scuff marks appeared on Herzog’s nice-guy image in an unlikely forum: Netanyahu’s corruption trial in Jerusalem. Under cross-examination about his relationships with various politicians, former Walla CEO Ilan Yeshua revealed that Herzog referred to former Labor rival Shelly Yacimovich as a “bitch” in text messages the two men exchanged. Herzog immediately apologized, calling his words “unnecessary” and “inappropriate.” The incident appeared to do little damage to Herzog’s standing in the center-left camp. Herzog is experienced in foreign policy and has close connections in the U.S. with both Democrats and Republicans. He has a personal relationship with U.S. President Joe Biden and members of his administration. Herzog also traveled abroad extensively to cement relationships with those communities with which he was already familiar, and to forge new relationships with those communities with which he had not previously engaged. Unlike his father, Herzog was not officially a diplomat but, in his various roles as a public servant, participated in diplomatic events, and as opposition leader he met almost every foreign dignitary who came on an official visit to Israel. At the Jewish Agency, where both his father and mother also once worked in the pre-state and early-state periods, Herzog outdid his father, by virtue of being the chairman. Like his father, who wrote several books, Herzog also has several books to his credit, and aside from what he’s written, like his father, he is a voracious reader. He has also been elected president at a younger age. His father was 65. Herzog is 60. The Herzog family has a long history of public service. It’s a well-known fact that his paternal grandfather, for whom he was named, was the first Ashkenazi chief rabbi of Israel, but what is less known is that the family has a centuries-old history of public service – both official and unofficial. After World War II, Herzog’s grandfather, accompanied by Herzog’s uncle Yaakov Herzog (who later became famous as Israel’s eloquent ambassador to Canada), went to Europe to search for child Holocaust survivors, many of whom had been taken in by convents and monasteries. The nuns and the priests were reluctant to give them up and denied that they were Jewish. Rabbi Herzog stood in front of all the children and recited the Shema prayer. Those who came from traditional or Orthodox homes spontaneously joined him, and he was thus able to restore their heritage and bring them to the Land of Israel. (SD-Agencies) | 