This is a list of heads of state and government who are Jewish or have a largely Jewish heritage.
Some former head of states and government have smaller amounts of Jewish heritage. Boris Johnson, a former prime minister of the United Kingdom whose maternal great-grandfather, Elias Avery Lowe, was a Moscow-born Jew born to a textile merchant, [111] said in a 2007 interview for the Jewish Chronicle, “I feel Jewish when I feel the Jewish people are threatened or under attack, that’s when it sort of comes out”. [111] David Cameron, another former prime minister of the United Kingdom, has referenced the German Jewish ancestry of one of his great-grandfathers, Arthur Levita, a descendant of the Yiddish author Elia Levita. [112] [113]
Another recent head of state of Jewish heritage is Nicolas Sarkozy, a former president of France. Sarkozy has a Greek Jewish grandfather who converted to Catholicism to marry his French Catholic maternal grandmother. [114] [115] He referred publicly to his Jewish grandfather. [116] Jorge Sampaio is a former president of Portugal whose maternal grandmother was a Sephardi Jew from Morocco. [117] Sampaio said that he is proud of his Jewish ancestry. [117] Xavier Bettel who has served as the prime minister of Luxembourg since 2013 said he has a Polish Jewish grandfather. [118]
Helmut Schmidt, a former chancellor of West Germany from 1974 to 1982 also has Jewish ancestry. [119] His father was born to a German Jewish banker, Ludwig Gumpel, and a Christian waitress, Friederike Wenzel, [120] and then covertly adopted, although this was kept a family secret for many years. [121] Schmidt served in Hitler’s Wehrmacht, while managing to hide his Jewish roots from the Nazi regime. [122]
Although most head of states with Jewish ancestry come from Europe and Latin America, some are from other regions of the World. Laisenia Qarase, a former prime minister of Fiji, has Jewish ancestry. [123] Qarase's mother is the daughter of John Herman Ma’afu Bowman, who had Jewish parents, Alexander Bowman and Sara Annette. [124] [125] Another example is Carlos Veiga, a former prime minister of Cape Verde. He said in a 2018 interview: “my grandfather on my mother’s side was Jewish, who came to Cape Verde from Gibraltar in the mid-1840s. He died before I was born and his grave was lost”. [126]
Some head of states claims to have Jewish ancestry, although not confirmed. Mexican President Francisco I. Madero's family was widely thought to have been of Portuguese-Jewish heritage. [127] Nicolás Maduro who has served as the president of Venezuela since 2013 said that his "grandparents were Jewish, from a [Sephardic] Moorish background, and converted to Catholicism in Venezuela". [128] Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa who has served as the president of Portugal since 2016 claimed that his mother had Jewish ancestry. [129]
Yitzhak Shamir was an Israeli politician and the seventh prime minister of Israel, serving two terms. Before the establishment of the State of Israel, Shamir was a leader of the Zionist militant group Lehi, also known as the Stern Gang.
The American Jewish Committee (AJC) is a civil rights group and Jewish advocacy group established on November 11, 1906. It is one of the oldest Jewish advocacy organizations and, according to the New York Times, is "widely regarded as the dean of American Jewish organizations".
In Modern Hebrew, the terms tzabar and tzabarim refer to any Jew born in Israel. Derived from the Hebrew name for the prickly pear cactus, which is commonly spelled sabra in English, the words had come into widespread use by the 1930s, when they were used to designate a Jewish person whose place of birth was located within the Land of Israel—corresponding with Ottoman Syria until 1918 and with the British Mandate of Palestine until 1948 —though it may have appeared earlier.
The history of the Jews in Ukraine dates back over a thousand years; Jewish communities have existed in the modern territory of Ukraine from the time of the Kievan Rus'. Important Jewish religious and cultural movements, from Hasidism to Zionism, arose there. According to the World Jewish Congress, the Jewish community in Ukraine constitutes Europe's fourth-largest and the world's 11th-largest.
Isaac "Bougie" Herzog is an Israeli politician who has been serving since 2021 as the 11th president of Israel. He is the first president to be born in Israel after its Declaration of Independence.
Jews in Eritrea can trace their history back to the late 19th century arrival of Yemenite Jews.
Israel–Uruguay relations are foreign relations between Israel and Uruguay. Uruguay was the first South American country and the fourth in the world to recognize Israel.
Israel–Ukraine relations are foreign relations between Israel and Ukraine. Both countries recognized each other on 11 May 1949 as the Ukrainian SSR and established de jure diplomatic relations on 26 December 1991 when Ukraine became independent. Israel has an embassy in Kyiv. Ukraine has an embassy in Tel Aviv and a consulate-general in Haifa. There are 30,000 Ukrainians settled in Israel, while Ukraine has one of Europe's largest Jewish communities. Ukraine was also the first state outside of Israel to have had both a Jewish president and prime minister simultaneously.
Israel–Lithuania relations are foreign relations between Israel and Lithuania. Israel recognized Lithuania's independence in 1991. Both countries established diplomatic relations in 1992. Israel is represented in Lithuania through its embassy in Vilnius which was opened in 2015. Lithuania has an embassy in Tel Aviv.
The history of the Jews in Zimbabwe reaches back over one century. Present-day Zimbabwe was formerly known as Southern Rhodesia and later as Rhodesia.
This is a list of Jewish populations in different cities and towns around the world. It includes statistics for populations of metropolitan areas, as well as statistics about the number of Jews as a percentage of the total city or town population.
The Genesis Prize is a $1 million annual prize awarded to Jewish people who have achieved significant professional success, in recognition of their accomplishments, contributions to humanity, and commitment to Jewish values.
Limmud FSU is an international Jewish education organization that focuses on educating young Jewish adults that have roots in the Former Soviet Union about their Jewish identity and culture. It was developed in 2006 by Chaim Chesler, founder (Israel); Sandra F. Cahn, co-founder . Limmud was originally a British-Jewish educational charity, which produces a large annual winter conference at Warwick University and several other events around the year in the UK on the theme of Jewish learning.
Kurdish Jews in Israel are immigrants and descendants of the immigrants of the Kurdish Jewish communities, who now reside within the state of Israel. They number between 150,000 and 300,000.
Jonathan Benyamin Markovitch is a Orthodox Rabbi in Kyiv.
Rabbi Avraham Hamra (1943 – 7 May 2021) was a Syrian-Israeli rabbi. He served as chief rabbi of Syrian and Lebanese Jews and was the last chief rabbi of Syria.
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He was from Vanua Balavu in northern Lau and had native Fijian, Tongan, and Jewish ancestry.