Published: 27 August 2018
Last updated: 4 March 2024
“SINCE I’VE STARTED this job, I ask myself every morning whether abolishing the Jewish Agency would be a good or bad thing,” says Isaac Herzog. Conveniently for him – since he’s just left the Knesset and become the Agency’s new chairman – he’s reached the conclusion that it would be “a tragedy for anyone who believes in the centrality of Israel to the dialogue between what I call Jerusalem and Babylon.”
Three and a half years ago, Herzog was on the brink of causing a massive political upset when his Zionist Union alliance was, in the polls at least, leading Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud on the eve of the 2015 parliamentary election.
But instead of unseating Netanyahu, he was unceremoniously dumped by his political party, Labor, which in July 2017 elected newcomer Avi Gabbay as its new leader.
Herzog’s appointment as head of the largest Jewish organisation in the world is a belated victory of sorts over Netanyahu – the first time the Agency has voted for a chairman from a rival party to that of Israel’s sitting prime minister. Netanyahu didn’t even issue a statement congratulating the new chairman.
But it’s also a final concession of defeat for Herzog: he’s never going to be prime minister.
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Photo: Olivier Fitoussi
