The Ancestry of Israeli Leaders: A Tapestry of Migration
Recent Israeli elections have brought to the forefront the varied family backgrounds of competing political figures, shedding light on the intricate web of ancestry that underpins Israel's leadership during a time of political uncertainty. The biographies of these politicians reveal a broad history of migrations originating from different parts of Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East. While a significant number of prominent political figures in Israel were born in the region, their familial roots trace back to countries such as Poland, Lithuania, Morocco, Iraq, Germany, and Moldova. This diversity encapsulates the waves of Jewish migration to Palestine before and after the establishment of Israel in 1948, largely propelled by the Zionist movement. It also reflects the historical divide between Ashkenazi Jews, who have European origins, and Mizrahi Jews, who possess genuine historical and geographical ties to the Middle East and North Africa.
The political landscape of Israel features a range of leaders, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who hails from Eastern European roots, and his main rival, former Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot, whose family migrated from Morocco. The spectrum also includes right-wing ministers like Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, former Prime Ministers Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid, alongside Palestinian politician Mansour Abbas, all of whom represent the complex diversity of origins within the Israeli political scene.
Profiles of Prominent Leaders and Their Heritage
Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel's longest-serving Prime Minister and leader of the right-wing Likud party, was born in 1949 in Tel Aviv and raised in Jerusalem. His paternal roots can be traced back to Poland and Lithuania; his father, historian and political activist Ben Zion Netanyahu, was born in Warsaw in 1910. The family migrated to Palestine during the British mandate in 1920, adopting the surname "Netanyahu" which his grandfather used in his writings. His paternal grandmother, Sarah Lurie, was born in Lithuania in 1885.
Gadi Eisenkot, Netanyahu's main rival in the 2026 elections and leader of the centrist Yashar party, comes from a Moroccan Jewish family. Born in 1960 in Tiberias to a family of immigrants, his father Meir Eisenkot was born in Marrakech, while his mother Esther hailed from Casablanca. The Eisenkot family is linked to the rich Moroccan Jewish culture, with relatives historically holding leadership roles in Marrakech.
Former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett was born in 1972 in Haifa to an American Jewish family that immigrated from San Francisco after the Six-Day War in 1967. Research during his visit to the Museum of Jewish People in Tel Aviv in 2017 revealed that his ancestors immigrated from Europe to the United States in the 19th century, with family roots extending to Poland, Holland, and Germany.
Yair Lapid, leader of the centrist Yesh Atid party and former Prime Minister, has Hungarian roots. His father, journalist and politician Yosef "Tommy" Lapid, was born in 1931 in Novi Sad, which was part of Yugoslavia at the time and is now in Serbia. Surviving the Holocaust, Tommy emigrated to Israel in 1948, with his WWII experiences and subsequent media career significantly shaping the family's public narrative.
Avigdor Lieberman, leader of the nationalist Yisrael Beiteinu party, stands out as he was born outside Israel on June 5, 1958, in Chișinău, Moldova, then part of the Soviet Union, to a Russian-speaking Jewish family. Lieberman immigrated to Israel in 1978 at the age of 20 and has since been closely associated with the Russian-speaking electorate that arrived through waves of immigration from the former Soviet Union.
Former general and leader of the Democratic party, Yair Golan, was born in 1962 in Rishon Lezion. His paternal roots are in Germany, while his maternal grandfather came from Ukraine. His father, Gershon, fled Nazi Germany in 1935 at the age of four and settled in Palestine during the British mandate.
Itamar Ben Gvir, the far-right Minister of National Security, traces his roots to Iraq and Kurdistan. In an interview, he noted that his father has Iraqi Jewish origins, while his maternal family hails from Kurdistan. He mentioned that his family name was originally "Hanan" before his father changed it, and highlighted that his mother was active in the Irgun, a paramilitary organization of the Zionist movement before the establishment of Israel in 1948.
Bezalel Smotrich, the right-wing Minister of Finance and leader of the Religious Zionism party, has family roots in Ukraine and Lithuania. Born in 1980 in the settlement of Hatzor HaGlilit, he grew up in the settlement of Beit El in the occupied West Bank. His family name is associated with the Ukrainian town of Smotrych, where his ancestors lived. According to Knesset Channel reports, his maternal grandfather Haim Moshe Fein was born in Panevėžys, Lithuania, while another maternal relative was born in Riga, Latvia.
Lastly, Mansour Abbas is among the Palestinians who remained on their land following the Nakba of 1948. Unlike his Jewish political competitors, Abbas's family has lived in the region for centuries. A dentist by profession, he leads the United Arab List (Ra'am), representing Arab citizens in Israel. Since his election to the Knesset in 2019, he rose to prominence in Israeli coalition politics, marking a historic moment when his party joined the government formed by Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid in 2021, representing a formal participation of an independent Arab party in an Israeli coalition government.
As reported by zamanarabic.com.
