When North Macedonian MP Rashela Mizrahi looks for a phrase to explain how a small, multi-ethnic Balkan state can live with differences without tearing itself apart, she reaches for two Turkish words: “bashka” and “barabar” - separate, yet together.
For Mizrahi, the two words embody how the small Balkan country’s Jewish community exists - as part of the nation but also separate as Jews. It is also partly why North Macedonia understands Israel’s “security realities” in a way that Mizrahi believes many European capitals no longer do, and why she came to Jerusalem last week at the head of a parliamentary delegation meant to demonstrate support for Israel and open the door to deeper cooperation.
“The stay was phenomenal,” she told The Jerusalem Post as the delegation prepared to fly home. “Every meeting was phenomenal.”
The visit was billed as a first-of-its-kind parliamentary delegation from North Macedonia to Israel, chaired by Mizrahi in her capacity as chair of the Israel–North Macedonia Parliamentary Friendship Committee, with logistical support from the American Jewish Committee (AJC).
Mizrahi, who holds a PhD in Biochemistry of Andrology, is a veterinarian by profession and a member of the right-wing VMRO-DPMNE party. She also holds a distinctive place in her country’s political history: she was the first Jewish minister of North Macedonia.
She described to the Post a program that combined high-level political meetings with discussions aimed at turning bilateral ties into projects with clear deliverables.
On the practical side, she said the delegation discussed “agronomy, tourism, cyber security, IT, water, water management.”
On the political side, she emphasized to the Post the symbolic importance of meeting Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana and senior officials connected to foreign affairs and defense-related cooperation.
“On a political level, listen, the very fact that we met with Ohana, as well as the minister of foreign affairs and the chief of the delegation of foreign affairs, the defense and the group for cooperation it was phenomenal,” she said.
She said the immediate objective now is reciprocity: Israeli visits to North Macedonia and collaboration that moves beyond diplomatic statements.
“It was very much on ground,” Mizrahi said. “We are waiting for their visitation of Macedonia and cooperation that is really on the ground and not just diplomatic.”
In her meeting with Ohana, Mizrahi said the conversation ranged from present-day partnership to the historical thread she believes binds the two countries’ Jewish communities and political story.
“We talked about everything that happened between both our countries and the fact that Ben-Gurion’s friends were from Macedonia and they were MPs in the Ottoman parliament and they were kind of lobbying for Israel,” she said. “So our friendship lasted more than the existence of both countries.”
The parliamentarian also used the meeting to underline where she believes Skopje stands today. “On the international scenario, we are one of the few countries that still support Israel in times of crisis, and that will remain the way it is,” she told the Post.
North Macedonia has consistently proven that its friendship with Israel is real and based on shared democratic values, according to Mizrahi. In international forums, too, such as the United Nations, North Macedonia often stands in the minority and supports Israel when many other countries do not.
Kočani and Israeli medical assistance
A significantly emotional part of the delegation’s visit was devoted to what Mizrahi called an obligation of gratitude.
She said the group visited Israeli hospitals to meet doctors who treated North Macedonian victims of the Kočani nightclub fire, a tragedy she described as involving 220 children, with 62 killed.
“We wanted to pay our respects also to the hospitals,” Mizrahi said. “We met the doctors who helped the children who were in the horrific event of the burning of the nightclub. We gave them some small gifts and invited them to meet us back.”
In one of her most pointed endorsements of Israel’s relationship with North Macedonia, Mizrahi singled out the role of Israel’s Non-Resident Ambassador to The Republic of North Macedonia Simona Frankel, and credited Israeli medical teams with saving lives.
“Ambassador Simona Franco is a hero in our country,” she told the Post.
For Mizrahi, that episode is part of why cooperation between Israel and North Macedonia should deepen in the years ahead, including, she said, in fields such as health, cyber, and digitalization.
Mizrahi’s story cannot be separated from the history of North Macedonia’s Jewish community and her own family’s role in rebuilding and defending it after Yugoslavia’s collapse.
Mizrahi said her father, Viktor, who led Skopje’s small Jewish community, helped establish the community’s post-communist footing. “He managed to build the first synagogue after the war in Skopje and we started collecting the historical data of our community,” she recalled.
That work, she said, brought political consequences, particularly when archival material concerning the deportation of Jews during World War II challenged narratives in the region.
In 2013, she said, her mother Ljiljana opened what she described as a major memorial center in Skopje holding archives, photographs, and family histories - “the biggest Sephardic center in the world,” in her telling - supported by international institutions that helped secure and preserve documentation.
For Mizrahi, the memorial is also a political statement. “The issue is not only to remember that 98% of the Jewish population of our country was killed but also to make a place where politicians of the region could sit down and negotiate things,” she said. “Because it’s a good reminder of what happens when you do not negotiate, talk or understand each other.”
She also recounted an episode from the Bosnian war that she believes encapsulates the moral logic her family inherited, the use of Jewish communal ties and international channels to evacuate Sarajevo’s Jews. Mizrahi said her father helped broker agreements with armed forces for a limited corridor - “48 hours” - to take Jews by bus to Hungary and then to Israel.
“What they said is Jews don’t need to die in this war as well… My father went with the buses just to take them out,” she said.
Mizrahi’s phrase about coexistence is linked to the everyday fact of shared life in North Macedonia, she told the Post.
“When it comes to vacations, holy days, funerals, giving birth in your family, we are together,” she said, describing neighborhoods where your neighbors are not all from one religious group. That, she argued, shapes her country’s instincts about Israel.
“In this sense, we can understand Israel in a much better way than anyone else,” she said.
“The Israeli sense of coexistence and freedom and the right to live… and the sense of historical awareness and security realities that our countries have - it’s here. It’s real,” she said.
During the conversation, Mizrahi also explained why she believes North Macedonia has not mirrored the sharp rise in anti-Israeli mobilization seen elsewhere in Europe.
“Even after October 7, we are in line with Israel,” she said.
North Macedonia is known for its commitment to religious tolerance, including the protection of Jewish daily life and historical memory, and “for taking a firm stand against antisemitism. And it's more than that, since we don't use the word tolerance but rather respect,” the parliamentarian told the Post.
Mizrahi also stated that after October 7, there was intense social media pressure and “massive” waves of anti-Israel content online, but insisted that “Macedonia was and is always in line with Israel,” pointing to what she described as shared moral values and historical awareness.
She acknowledged one strategic tension: North Macedonia’s ambition to join the European Union. That goal, she said, creates political pressure to align with Brussels - but she argued it does not translate into automatic compliance, particularly where votes are not strictly unified.
“There is a problem called we want to enter European Union… but as long as they don’t have a unilateral vote on something we support Israel 100% and completely,” she said, adding that her country has repeatedly voted in line with Israel on international platforms.
Mizrahi, who is a tour de force to speak with, does not portray politics as a career ladder. She describes it as a fight, both for public institutions and for the social cohesion she believes criminal networks in her country exploit.
“We’re not just in politics,” she said. “We’re in a fight for our lives.”
She argued that her country’s “us against them” narratives around ethnicity are often distractions: “It’s a big bubble and it’s a big lie… until the criminal players do their business,” she said.
“The only thing I see that we cannot co-exist with is the mafia,” she said.
That framing feeds into her emphasis on digitalization and governance reform as strategic issues for a small state. She said public trust in courts has collapsed - “two percent” - and suggested that digitalization is one route to bypass entrenched corruption.
Mizrahi’s most vivid example was her account of leading a parliamentary inquiry into what she called the “Oncology Case,” alleging that “medications were never bought,” “patients were never treated,” and “464 million euros are missing.”
She described a truck arriving with “35,000 pages,” colleagues reluctant to work on the file, and weeks of reading and archiving documents herself.
Mizrahi repeatedly returned to one practical ambition - turning a warm political relationship into structured cooperation across ministries.
She said areas like health and transport should be part of the next steps, noting the need to improve connectivity and deepen joint work.
However, the central message she wanted to leave in Jerusalem was political: that North Macedonia sees its role as publicly standing with Israel and translating partnership into tangible work.
“The most important part for Israel was that they were friends to Macedonia always in times of crisis, and Macedonia is a friend to Israel in times of crisis,” she said.
And in that framing, the delegation’s visit was meant to be an opening, not a culmination, “to open the doors for the next 30 to 50 years.”