Israel’s First Lady: ‘There has been a dark cloud over all of us – but we Jews understand that we are one community’

“There has been a dark cloud over all of us since October 7, but one small silver lining is that as Jews we understand that we are one community. And that is why it is important to work together, help each other, and I want to help where I can.

“The president and I see an increasingly big part of our mission is to engage with Jewish communities around the world. The diaspora communities were always wonderful to us. They came to volunteer and help, not to mention the philanthropy. But it is a two-way street and that has become more apparent since October 7. We help each other in every possible way.”

The daughter of a celebrated military hero, she was born on a kibbutz in Israel. Some of her childhood was spent in Brazil and Argentina where her father was a military attaché. It means she has an idea of life as a diaspora Jew and what antisemitism feels like outside Israel – perceptions that many of her fellow Israelis are only really beginning to gain.

“This didn’t come from nowhere; all the Jewish institutions have had to be protected for a long time,” she says. “Jews have been killed in France and Belgium before this war. The Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires was my second home for a while, so I knew the Jewish Community Centre [which Hezbollah terrorists blew up in 1994, killing 85 people] really well. History may not repeat, but it rhymes.

“After October 7, it became clear that what happens in Israel affects every Jew in every Jewish community around the world and vice versa. Israelis see the demonstrations, the antisemitism, the encampments. They realise this is a two-way street. And I see it when I travel: there is increased security of Jewish institutions wherever we go.”

[Missing Credit]

Michal met her husband, Isaac, at university. A trip to Manchester 40 years ago with her then new husband and his Irish-born politician father Chaim, who was then President of Israel, is one she fondly recalls. It was their foreign work trip as a couple. “Forty years!” she sighs. “Obviously, that does not mean that we’re not still a young couple!”

Once a top lawyer, in the past few years as first lady she has carved out a role for herself as a mediator, a comforter and – while the presidential couple is not meant to be political – an advocate.

An instinctive feminist, she was shocked at the way feminist organisations have either been silent or even denied the rapes of October 7 and has spoken out against the UN Women organisation over its silence on the issue.

“The hypocrisy hurts, it literally hurts,” she says. “It is hard to talk about the silence when sexual violence is used as a weapon of war. For me this is universal message because if it is not discussed, it will escalate. Just last summer, just over our border with Syria, Druze women were attacked, the sexual violence was horrific. There’s more than 80 women still missing and no one talks about it. No one cares.”

Standing with Israel is rare and difficult. “One UN rapporteur, Pramila Patten. did come and do a report about the sexual violence and she was attacked for it,” says Herzog. “For months afterwards, whatever war she was talking about, people in the crowd would scream at her about Israel. This is antisemitism.”

She’s been shocked, like all of us, at how quickly the tide turned against Israel.

While she admits that Israel “does have a PR problem”, she also insists that the “other side was already prepared. A few hours after October 7 they were already screaming about how awful Israel was on TikTok. And we weren’t prepared for that.”

She says that Israelis are struggling to grapple with quite how demonised they have become across the world. “Israelis love to travel, but now they have to think twice about where is safe for them to go, which is something that never existed before,” she says. “It staggers me, it staggers all of us. How can people defend the slaughter of October 7 in which Hamas killed the very kibbutzniks who were sending money over to Gazans?”

The relationship with the UK government, which, along with Australia, Canada and France, recognised a Palestinian state even as Hamas terrorists were still holding British hostages, is strained. Herzog tries to remain diplomatic, saying with a wry smile: “Our countries are still friends but sometimes friends have communication problems.”

Getting into Manchester, with a police escort to take her to Heaton Park synagogue, is a quick jolt into the hell of what happened here seven months ago. The road leading to the synagogue has been closed off and a phalanx of policemen are stationed on either side. As the wife of one president and daughter-in-law of another, this has been her everyday existence. This level of security is now, increasingly, ours.

There to greet her is Rabbi Daniel Walker, who leads the congregation and has been their voice after they were thrust, heartbreakingly, into the national limelight. Speaking to Herzog, he explains how the terrorist Jihad Al-Shamie crashed into the gate before starting his stabbing spree.

He shows her the eight doors that he and his congregants barricaded themselves behind while the Syrian born Al-Shamie tried – and almost succeeded – in pushing his way through.

In the synagogue’s small hall, there is Battenberg cake, crisps and fruit on the tables. Some congregants are in heels and wearing the kind of hats you might see at Royal Ascot; others are in trainers.

The first lady is here, accompanied by Jewish TV star Rob Rinder, to meet the bereaved and the wounded and present two MDA ambulances in the names of those killed, Melvin Cravitz and Adrian Daulby. There is a live stream to a ceremony in Israel where the two ambulances are officially unveiled.

www.thisisdecoy.co.uk[Missing Credit]

Inside the synagogue people wipe away tears as Rabbi Walker points to the seats Melvin and Adrian always sat on. “They should be here,” says the leader of a flock that has found itself linked forever with the new antisemitism that has gripped Britain.

Cravitz’s stepdaughter Sherelle Dresner confides that the first lady has invited her to visit the presidential mansion when she is next in Israel with her family.

The visit clearly means a lot. “The world moves on very quickly and there have been a series of antisemitic attacks since Melvin and Adrian were killed,” says Sherelle. “But we are still dealing with the aftermath. People’s lives will be saved in the name of Melvin and Adrian and there is nothing more special than that. It feels like this is a positive way of keeping their memory alive.”

Yoni Finlay, who was shot while barricading the door, says that while he’s physically recovered, mentally he has not been able to move on. “I recognise what happened to me was a miracle but also that there are people who are not here who should be here. That’s something I am not sure I will ever come to terms with.

“Meeting the first lady reminds me of when we met King Charles. With both, the meetings have not been rushed. You feel they take the time to be with you, to talk to you. It makes you feel human again.” How about the politicians? “It is a bit harder to talk about the politicians,” says Yoni, sadly.

The toll of imbibing yet more pain has clearly drained Herzog and is visible on the train back to London. Some of the congregation told her about plans to move to Israel and said they could no longer see a future for British Jewry. She finds this hard: she has been to too many funerals at home, knows that more war and terror are on the horizon. Making aliyah is not an easy option.

“I told them, ‘I can promise you one thing, it won’t be boring’,” she says with a rueful smile. “At the moment, we are all on edge in Israel. Uncertainty is very difficult.”

It has been a tough day but you have to see the positive when you are in her role. “It was touching how much they appreciated me visiting,” she says. “It was very meaningful to be there. To mark where they were taken. But all I can hope is that in their names, lives will be saved.”