Face to Face with: Yitzchak Herzog

W hen it comes to political yichus Yitzhak Herzog has few peers. His father Chaim served Israel as president UN ambassador IDF general and head of army intelligence. Yitzhak’s uncle was Abba Eban an eloquent defender of Israel as the country’s UN ambassador and foreign minister.

Talk to Yitzhak Herzog and he will tell you the yichus he is proudest of is the man he was named after — his grandfather and Israel’s first chief rabbi Rabbi Yitzhak HaLevi Herzog of blessed memory.

He relates this as we sit in the sprawling lobby of the Fairmont Hotel in Monaco where I was on assignment three weeks ago at a convention of the Conference of European Rabbis. Herzog’s grandfather stepped into his position at an equally tumultuous time at the dawn of Israel’s statehood when the roots of much of today’s political and religious discord were first planted.

“My father wrote about my grandfather in his memoirs that toward the end of his life the extremism in Jewish life pained him a lot ” Herzog says. “In addition to being a great sage and a righteous man my grandfather was also a centrist a moderate. He said we need to hear and talk and find solutions.”