President of the State of Israel
The son of Israel's sixth President, Chaim Herzog, and grandson of Israel's first Chief Rabbi, Yizhak Isaac Halevi Herzog, President Isaac Herzog was born in Tel Aviv in 1960, trained as a lawyer and became a senior partner in one of Israel's leading Law firms.
In 2003, Herzog was elected member of Israel's parliament, the Knesset, after serving as Government Secretary to Prime Minister Ehud Barak (1999-2001). Throughout his 15 years in the Knesset, Herzog held several parliamentary and ministerial posts, among them Minister of Housing and Construction; Minister of Tourism; Minister of Diaspora Affairs, Society and the Fight Against Anti-Semitism. Herzog's revolutionary term as Minister of Welfare & Social Services is considered his crowning achievement in the Government of Israel. Herzog was a Member of Israel's Security Cabinet, in addition to serving as Government Coordinator for the Provision of Humanitarian Aid to Gaza.
In 2013, Herzog was elected Chairman of the Israeli Labor Party, the founding party of the State of Israel, becoming Leader of the Opposition. Two years later he led the alliance between the Labor Party and the “Hatnua” Party to form Israel's largest center-left political party of that time – the Zionist Union, which made him a leading candidate for Prime Minister during the 2015 national elections.
In June of 2018, Herzog was appointed Chairman of the Executive of The Jewish Agency for Israel (JAFI), the historic organization that laid the foundations of the State of Israel and the largest Jewish NGO in the world. As JAFI Chairman he led the process of restructuring the organization, which reinvigorated it, reaffirmed its prominence within world Jewry, and solidified JAFI's status as a bridge to Jewish communities worldwide and the State of Israel.
On July 7, 2021, Isaac Herzog was sworn in as the 11th President of the State of Israel, following an overwhelming majority vote at the Knesset which constituted a historic landslide victory.
President Herzog published numerous books and articles in Israel and worldwide, and is a sought-after speaker in different fields all over the world. He is married to Michal, also a lawyer by profession and an expert in philanthropy, and they have three sons.
