It’s not about 'them' it's about all of us

Not one for the limelight, Zionist Union co-leader Isaac Herzog’s wife, Michal, opens up her home to let voters see a more personal side.

By LAURA KELLY
Michal Herzog (photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM/THE JERUSALEM POST)
Michal Herzog
(photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM/THE JERUSALEM POST)
Before Michal Afek married Isaac “Buji” Herzog, his mother, Aura, pulled her aside for a very intimate conversation.
As the son of Chaim Herzog, Israel’s sixth president, and the grandson of Israel’s first chief rabbi, Yitzhak Halevi Herzog, the young Isaac had a big legacy to live up to. Her future mother-inlaw wanted to know: Would Michal support him if he went into public life? “I was so young, I didn’t know anything and I said, ‘Of course I will!’” Mrs. Herzog Jr. looks back on this moment and laughs. It’s tough being a politician’s wife, and she wouldn’t recommend it. But she does have to consider how life will change if her husband becomes the next prime minister alongside Tzipi Livni.
Having been in the government for over 16 years, Herzog has served as minister for housing, tourism, Diaspora affairs and welfare and social services. In November 2013, he beat Shelly Yacimovich as head of the Labor Party with more than 60 percent of the vote.
The win came as a surprise; many people had underestimated his victory.
In another challenge to the public’s expectations, to create a formidable opponent to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Herzog approached Hatnua head Livni regarding a stronger Center-Left government; they formed the Zionist Union in December.
Election polls and surveys have put the Zionist Union neck and neck with the Likud – but polls split voters between actually supporting the platform of the Center-Left government and simply preferring the Zionist Union due to disenchantment with the Likud.
Other polls say that despite Herzog’s long career in government, they don’t know who he is.
Which explains Michal’s readiness to be interviewed: She understands the public wants to get to know Herzog better, and they have an interest in the personal side of the story. If anything, she wants to show people that her husband comes as part of a package deal, with a strong family base to support him.
THREE WEEKS before the election on March 17, Mrs.
Herzog, 53, invites The Jerusalem Post into her home. A white stucco with a red tiled roof, it sits in a relatively upscale suburb of Tel Aviv.
The front door bears a ceramic plaque with “The Herzogs” written in Hebrew and English. The use of a name-plate is somewhat amusing, as no one is going to stumble upon this home – the armed guard in the security booth out front makes sure of that.
Michal greets us promptly at 11 a.m. Her dirty-blond hair is pulled back in a tight ponytail and she sports a crisp white button-down shirt, with skinny leather pants and black flats offsetting her business look.
She has just finished up some emails, and the house is quiet; it is neat, orderly and tastefully decorated. The only evidence of the campaign is an Israeli flag next to a shelf of books, recognizable as the background of a few promotional videos Herzog made for the election.
Shabbat candlesticks and silver servingware sit behind the dining room table. The living room is decorated with knick-knacks from foreign travels, and choice art pieces hang on the wall. The kitchen fridge bears photo magnets from wedding celebrations, and there are family photos of vacations abroad. Everything looks so normal – could this be the next family to move into the Prime Minister’s Residence? “What is politics?” Michal begins by asking. She speaks English with a light lilt in her voice and pronounces some of her words with a touch of a German accent, replacing her “th” with a “d.”
“At the end of the day, people talk to people, people vote for people… So if you can see that there is a trustworthy person, that he has a very supportive family, a very normal family life, I think it makes them feel more comfortable.”
But she criticizes this election cycle, with campaigns focusing more on image and less on issues. “It’s the voice, the way you look, it’s what you wear,” she says, referencing personal attacks on her husband in the media.
“You pay a price for being in the public eye, and it gets worse,” Michal says, noting that she often talks to wives of former politicians and that the media of the past were not as aggressive as they are today. “There was much more respect.”
Asked whether she has an opinion on how the press reports on Sara Netanyahu, Michal takes a deep breath.
“No,” she says thoughtfully. “I think gossip is not one of my strong points and, you know, every person has their personality. I really have no opinion on that.”
For herself, she just doesn’t read the talkbacks and admits to being uncomfortable in the spotlight. She’s not a politician, and she’s not up for election.
“I look at my husband and I see a very strong person; he has a strong personality, and knows exactly where he’s going and what he wants to achieve. So far he has done just fine, and I’m very confident in his ability to lead. He’s a long-distance runner – he knows where he wants to go, and knows how to go about it.”
FREQUENTLY INVOLVED in public life but rarely in the limelight, Mrs. Herzog has stacked up an impressive resume of experiences and causes.
The only child of Shaul and Zvia Afek, Michal says she grew up in a Zionist home. Bedtime stories were of the British Mandate-era battles and victories of the Palmah underground army, of which her father was a veteran.
She was a Labor Party member even before she married into its elite.
In the ’70s the family spent around three years in South America, when her father served as the Israeli military attaché in Brazil and Colombia. Later they moved to Canada, where Michal finished high school and began university. She speaks four languages – Hebrew, English, Portuguese and French – and is trying to find the time to learn Arabic.
“I’ll continue after the elections,” she says, adding jokingly the injustice of it all that her husband and three sons have better Arabic than her.
She returned to Israel for her IDF service, serving in the prestigious 8200 intelligence unit.
It was while in the army, particularly patronizing the Shekem (canteen), where she first met her husband; they started talking after realizing they had a mutual friend. Herzog was just finishing his officers’ course while Michal was beginning her basic training.
When Herzog was sent to serve in Sinai, they didn’t see each other for almost a year after their first meeting.
After the withdrawal from Sinai he was at the same base as Michal, and they began seeing each other. Michal laughs at what they did on one of their first dates – one of those “only in Israel” stories: They went to an exhibit of declassified Lebanese intelligence, gathered during the First Lebanon War.
The two attended law school together, marrying in their third year. “We had a very small wedding when his father was already president, at [the Herzog family] home in Herzliya.” Michal was pregnant with their first son, Noam, while they were preparing for the bar exams. Matan was born five years later, and Roy followed seven years after that.
Mrs. Herzog is protective of her boys’ presence in the public eye; she doesn’t publish current photos of them.
After finishing law school, Michal worked as a criminal lawyer, specializing in white-collar crime. “It was very exciting, full of adrenaline,” she says with a smile.
But she also acknowledges the difficulties of it, describing criminal representation as “hard-core.”
A comment like this gives a little insight into her personality. She describes herself as down-to-earth and the keeper of sanity in the family, but one gets the sense she’s exciting in her own right.
She’s also a trained mediator. “Conflicts are a way of life, but in order to resolve conflict you have to be able to understand the cause of the person standing in front of you.”
As to how her experiences in these professions have shaped her worldview, she says she believes there isn’t only one truth. “You understand that there are different angles to look at,” she explains. “I always say that the justice system is not always about 100-percent pure justice, it’s about having an arrangement, having the most justice; it’s not always a black-and-white picture.
The mediator in me, it’s more about bringing people together onto common ground.”
Does she advise her husband on conflict resolution? “My husband is a natural mediator,” she says supportively.
“All the things I learned in the mediation course… he does those instinctively.”
She switches into campaign mode to further illustrate her point. “That’s why he was able to unify the opposition. There’s no way you can bring those factions together. He has that kind of personality, he’s a people person.”
While Michal wouldn’t rule out returning to the professional world of law – albeit as a mediator – she’s enjoying her philanthropic work, which she’s been doing for 16 years.
“After years of visiting my clients in jail or hearing they’re being arrested, now I get to meet wonderful people. Really, only good people with good intentions… I’m thrilled with where I am now, I love what I do.”
She is a champion of women’s causes, asserting that wage equality between the sexes should be implemented immediately. Her strongest belief is that any good social change in society begins with women. “Women in Israel are strong – and getting stronger.”
She is the Israeli representative of the Wohl Philanthropic Foundation, which just awarded a $6.5 million grant in the field of translational medical research to Hadassah University Medical Center in Jerusalem’s Ein Kerem and Sheba Medical Center in Tel Hashomer, which is associated with Tel Aviv University’s Sackler Faculty of Medicine.
Another project Michal is most proud of is a women’s academic college in Safed, an outgrowth of her work promoting employment among haredi communities; the goal is to have people working in the community who understand the community. Having followed the women in the first three years of the project, Michal expresses her amazement over watching the initially shy and sheltered women open up.
She says the improvement in their self-confidence can be seen in the way they carry themselves and talk, and has also received feedback that they are even inspiring their families. “Their children are more mindful and more helpful at home, and [working] to achieve better grades in school; they really encourage their mothers.”
Michal also founded and heads the alumni association of Tel Aviv University’s Buchman Faculty of Law – from which she and Herzog graduated – and also served as a member of the Health Ministry’s Surrogacy Committee, which approves agreements between parents and surrogate mothers. She’s active in her children’s school committees, is a member of various NGO boards, and speaks with great pride of being part of the renovation of their local neighborhood synagogue.
One of the privileges of being in a political family, Michal stresses, is the opportunity to interact with all of Israeli society. “One of the things I’m very happy about is that my children are exposed to everyone,” she says, ticking off the groups that comprise the kaleidoscope of Israeli society: Arabs, Beduin, new immigrants, veteran Israelis, haredim. All these people are welcome in her home, she says.
Toward this end, she is also a board member of Merchavim – The Institute for the Advancement of Shared Citizenship in Israel. The NGO attempts to bring different segments of Israeli society together, and identify areas within education and community development that can be used as mechanisms for social change and the promotion of tolerance.
Real security stems from a united society, Michal avers, and internal divisions are a threat that shouldn’t be ignored. Looking at the callousness of these elections, with less focus on the issues and more on an “us or them” mentality, its easy to understand her worry.
“I think we always have to realize that the day after the election, we all have to live here together.”
WITH SO much going on, how does the family stay grounded, a cohesive unit? Herzog’s answer is clear – she quotes Ahad Ha’am: “More than the Jewish people have kept the Shabbat, the Shabbat has kept the Jews.”
Married to the grandson of the first chief rabbi, it’s expected that the Herzogs maintain a certain level of religiosity.
“We make kiddush, we light candles, we keep all the holidays. We’re not shomer Shabbat, but we’re respectful.”
The most important thing, Michal emphasizes, is to keep up the family routine – and that means Friday- night dinners. This is essential in staying sane against the maelstrom of media and talkbacks. “You pay a price for being in the public eye.”
But Michal is also adorably self-deprecating about being part of the famous Herzog family. She tells an anecdote about when she and her husband visited Belfast. “Buji said, ‘Oh, my family is so well-known in Ireland.’ We said, ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah, they’ve heard all about your family,’” she recounts with a chuckle.
As they got into a taxi at the airport, her husband asked the driver if he knew where Bloomfield Road was – where Yitzhak Halevi Herzog grew up. The driver answered in the affirmative and added, “You know who used to live there?” When Herzog replied, “Yes, I’m his grandson,” the cabbie almost drove off the road. “So Buji said, ‘See! We’re famous here!’” FAMILY PHOTOS line a table in the living room. The family of five is seen in New York, and in a novelty photo from Toys ‘R’ Us. Then there’s a photo of the couple together in Prague; they look to be about 30 and are wearing suits, but there is something playful in their stance and both have wide smiles. It’s an intimate photo, and a reminder of the long journey they’ve been on – since they met in that army canteen over 30 years ago.
Asked whether she’s ever had to give up anything because of her husband’s career, Michal answers with an emphatic no. “I achieved everything I wanted. I didn’t have to give in or give up anything.”