Raised abroad, immigrated and served in the army: Aura Herzog’s life is a reflection of the history of Israel. She has dedicated her life to the country and its people.
Aura Herzog (2nd from left) on a state visit with her husband Chaim Herzog (3rd from left) in Germany.
Aura Herzog was the woman at the side of the former Israeli President Chaim Herzog, and the mother of the incumbent President Isaak Herzog. She herself was always active in the public service throughout her life. Now she died on Monday at the age of 97.
Israel Defense Minister Benny Gantz, in his response to her death, described Herzog as a pioneer who worked for Israeli society and was part of the generation that built the nation. All of Israel is grateful to her for this.
Herzog was far more than a former first lady. If one had to tell the story of Israel on the basis of a biography, Aura Herzog’s life story would provide a suitable basis.
From Egypt via South Africa to the British Mandate Palestine
Aura Herzog was born in Egypt in 1924 as Aura Ambache. Her parents were of Polish-Jewish and Russian-Jewish origin and originally lived in Jaffa, which was then still part of the Ottoman Empire. However, like thousands of other Jews, the two were expelled by the Turks during World War I in 1915. The father, Simcha Herzog, then worked as an engineer for the operator of the Suez Canal.
Herzog grew up in Ismalia and Cairo and attended the French school there. She later moved to South Africa to study at university, where she graduated with degrees in mathematics and physics. Her studies will be useful to her later in the Israeli army.
After graduating in 1946, Herzog emigrated to where her parents had lived decades before. Only now it was no longer an area in the Ottoman Empire, but the British mandate of Palestine. The then 22-year-old joined the “Hagana”, the Jewish underground army, which became part of the Israeli army after the state was founded. Only two years later the Israeli War of Independence began, which ended in the establishment of the State of Israel.
In the year of her immigration, Herzog immediately received a place in the first year of the diplomatic school of the Jewish Agency, the official representation of Jews in the mandate area. There she met her future husband Chaim Herzog, whom she married a year later.
During the War of Independence, the soldier Herzog worked first in the intelligence service of the army and then in the science corps. She was seriously injured in a bomb attack on the building in which Herzog was at the time. 13 people were killed in the attack. Newspapers report that Chaim Herzog carried her out of the building, seriously injured.
A life in the service of the public
After serving in the Army, Herzog continued to serve the public while her husband pursued a career in diplomacy and later in politics. In the 1970s he was Israel’s permanent representative to the United Nations in New York. Aura Herzog was Director General of the Council for Art and Culture from 1959 to 1968, founded Israel’s first environmental organization in 1968, which she presided over for almost 40 years and was involved in social institutions.
Meanwhile, her husband was Israeli President from 1983 to 1993. Chaim Herzog died in 1997. The two have four children. Two of them are still present in Israeli politics and diplomacy today: son Isaak Herzog is the incumbent Israeli president. Another son, Michael Herzog, is Israel’s acting ambassador to the United States.