President of Israel

• 1. Introduction

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  The President of Israel signs laws, receives foreign diplomats, and confers one of the world's most recognized humanitarian honors. Yet actual governing power in Israel belongs to someone else entirely. The prime minister and cabinet hold executive authority. The presidency, by design, sits outside that chain. It is a position of symbol and discretion, not policy. How did Israel arrive at this arrangement? What happens when a president chooses to use the quiet powers the office actually holds? And what does it mean to lead a country while deliberately holding back from its politics? Those are the questions worth exploring here.

• 2. How a President Is Chosen

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  On the 16th of February 1949, the Knesset held Israel's first presidential election, and Chaim Weizmann won. That vote established a pattern that has defined every transfer of power since: the president of Israel is chosen not by the public, but by the parliament, through secret ballot and absolute majority.

  If no candidate clears that majority in the first round, the field narrows. The candidate with the fewest votes is dropped in each subsequent round until only two remain. It is a deliberate, elimination-style contest among lawmakers, not a popular election. Any Israeli resident citizen is eligible to run, and the law sets no minimum age of candidacy. The Knesset did consider an age floor of 40, but rejected it as unnecessary.

  For the office's first half century, from 1949 through 2000, a president served a five-year term and could be re-elected once. That changed in 2000, when the law shifted to a single seven-year term with no possibility of renewal. The change reflects the office's non-partisan spirit: a president who cannot run again has less incentive to accumulate political allies or make political calculations. Isaac Herzog was elected the 11th President on the 2nd of June 2021, and his term began on the 9th of July that year.

• 3. Symbol Over Power

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  Basic Law: The Presidency, passed in 1964, sets the constitutional framework for what the office can and cannot do. Its core mandate is for the president to "stand at the head of the State" - representing Israel abroad and cultivating national unity at home. Executive power, by explicit provision of Basic Law: The Government, is vested in the cabinet.

  Most presidential acts require the countersignature of the prime minister or another designated minister to carry legal effect. The president signs bills passed by the Knesset into law, ratifies treaties the Knesset has approved, and endorses the credentials of Israeli ambassadors abroad. The president also receives the credentials of foreign diplomats arriving in Israel.

  One constitutional scholar has described the presidency as Israel's "fourth branch of government." That framing captures something real. The presidency is immune from both civil suits and criminal prosecution for anything related to official functions. That immunity exists specifically to insulate the president from the legislative, executive, and judicial branches, creating an independent institutional space where successive presidents can exercise nonpartisan influence without becoming instruments of party politics.

• 4. The Appointment Power

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  Among the routine functions of the office, the range of public appointments the president makes is striking. Judges are appointed by the president following nominations from the Judicial Selection Committee. Beyond the judiciary, the president appoints the governor of the Bank of Israel, the president of Magen David Adom, the president of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, and members of bodies including the Council on Higher Education, the National Academy of Science, the Broadcasting Authority, the Authority to Rehabilitate Prisoners, the Chief Rabbinical Council, and the Wolf Foundation.

  All appointments outside the judiciary are made on the advice of the government, so the president is not choosing freely from a blank slate. Still, the sheer breadth of institutions touched by presidential appointments means the office shapes a wide range of Israeli civic and cultural life. The president also participates annually in the awarding of the Israel Prize, held each year on Yom Ha'atzmaut, and serves as keynote speaker at the opening ceremonies of the half-yearly Knesset conference and the official ceremonies for Yom Hazikaron and Yom HaShoah.

• 5. Reserve Powers in Practice

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  Three areas fall under the president's personal discretion rather than the government's binding advice: forming a government after elections, dissolving the Knesset, and granting clemency. Of these, government formation has proven to be the most consequential in practice.

  Israel's political landscape is fragmented enough that no single party has ever won an outright Knesset majority. After each election, the president consults with party leaders to judge who can command a majority. That person then receives the mandate to form a government. If they fail, the mandate passes to someone else. If no government can be formed within the timeframe set by Basic Law: The Government, the president dissolves the Knesset and calls fresh elections. The president can also refuse a prime minister's request to dissolve the Knesset when the government has lost its majority. That refusal effectively dismisses the prime minister and triggers the resignation of the government.

  On clemency, each president brings their own philosophy. The president can pardon, reduce, or commute sentences for both civilians and soldiers. The process involves receiving information from applicants and consulting the minister of justice or the minister of defense, depending on the case. But the final decision rests with the president alone.

• 6. Backgrounds and Firsts

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  Chaim Weizmann, Israel's first president, was not primarily a politician. He was a leading research chemist who founded the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot. Zalman Shazar was an author, poet, and journalist. Chaim Herzog was a military leader, attorney, and diplomat who originally came from Belfast, United Kingdom. The early presidents brought remarkably varied credentials to the role.

  The first Israeli presidents were born in the former Russian Empire. Yitzhak Navon was the first president born in the land that became Israel, and also the first with a Sephardi background. Moshe Katsav, born in Iran, was the first president with a Mizrahi background. Isaac Herzog, who took office on the 7th of July 2021, is the first president born in the modern state of Israel after its declaration of independence. He is also the first son of a former Israeli president to hold the office. As of 2024, the only other presidents with close family ties were Chaim Weizmann and his nephew Ezer Weizman.

• 7. Politics at the Margins

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  All Israeli presidents from Yitzhak Ben-Zvi through Ezer Weizman were members of, or associated with, the Labor Party and its predecessors. Moshe Katsav was the first Likud president, winning against Labor's Shimon Peres in 2000 by secret ballot in what observers regarded as an upset.

  The April 1978 election of Yitzhak Navon was viewed through a particular political lens at the time. The governing Likud coalition had been unable to elect its own candidate. Navon, representing Labor, took office while Prime Minister Menachem Begin led the government. Israeli observers at the time saw Navon's unifying presence as a counterbalance to Begin's more polarizing style. Navon served five years before deciding in 1983 to re-enter Labor politics, making him the only former president to return to partisan public life during the period the source covers.

  Albert Einstein, a Jew but not an Israeli citizen, was offered the presidency in 1952 and turned it down. His stated reason was direct: "I am deeply moved by the offer from our State of Israel, and at once saddened and ashamed that I cannot accept it. All my life I have dealt with objective matters, hence I lack both the natural aptitude and the experience to deal properly with people and to exercise official functions." Ehud Olmert was reported to have considered offering the presidency to Elie Wiesel, a non-Israeli, though Wiesel was said to be "very not interested." Both episodes point to how the office is sometimes imagined as a post for figures whose stature transcends the ordinary requirements of Israeli citizenship.