President Herzog got another achievement under his belt, at a time when reconciliation is a dirty word in Israel

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His grandfather (and namesake) was the chief rabbi of Israel, Rabbi Yitzchak (Isaac) Herzog. His father, Chaim Herzog, was Israel’s sixth president. But in the five months since the government’s swearing in, Israel’s President Isaac Herzog has seemed more like the UN Secretary General’s envoy to the Middle East than anything else.

Herzog gained his skills as a consummate sweet talker and mediator over the course of decades as a lawyer and then politician. His Knesset colleagues initially saw him as too much of a nice guy, a sort of English gentleman in Israeli politics, but it wasn’t long before they would learn that Herzog was an expert politician with keen instincts.

After losing reelection as chair of the Labor Party, despite bringing it to its best result of the 21st century in the 2015 election, he used his chairmanship of the Jewish Agency as a springboard to his election as 11th president of Israel by a massive majority, gaining votes from both sides of the political divide, including Netanyahu himself.

Recently, Herzog has had his peacemaking skills put to the test. After protestors against judicial reform took to the streets and Israel found itself in a constitutional, economic, and diplomatic crisis, Herzog tried to assume the role of intermediary, coming out with a “people’s compromise” after talks with both sides. But Justice Minister Yariv Levin perceived the compromise proposal as a death blow to judicial reform, and the right accused the president of taking sides.

In retrospect, the right can only regret its rejection of the president’s offer as a basis for compromise. The spectacular meltdown that ensued — with Defense Minister Yoav Gallant’s dismissal in the dead of night after he spoke out against the reform, which ignited a new wave of protests — was something Levin and his coterie couldn’t have predicted. Netanyahu had no choice but to call the process to a halt and practically beg the president to host the two sides at his residence in order to try to reach understandings.

Like the Israeli-Palestinian talks, the dialogue in the president’s residence has seen ups and downs since then, but the most important thing for Netanyahu is that they’re taking place at all. For as long as the two sides are sitting down and discussing some proposal or other, Bibi can continue his usual shenanigans. He explains in fluent English to the Americans and Europeans that the reform is over and any future steps will only be made through consensus; while in Hebrew, he provides reassurances to Levin and his far-right allies, Rothman, Ben Gvir, and Smotrich, that he’ll make sure some version of the reform is passed, at some point down the road.

The one who can’t take it anymore is Justice Minister Yariv Levin, Netanyahu’s closest associate for the past few years, and the man who cobbled together the current right-wing coalition —in which Netanyahu feels about as comfortable as a Democratic senator on a visit to Mar-a-Lago.

The fork in the road that will force Netanyahu to choose between breaking off the talks and renewing the protests or anchoring the judicial status quo in an open break with Levin should come this week. The Knesset plenum is set to convene to elect its two representatives on the judicial selection committee, of whom one traditionally comes from the coalition and one from the opposition.

If no representative is elected on behalf of the opposition, as Levin is urging, the protests we saw at the start of the term will prove only a foretaste of what comes next.

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And back to President Isaac Herzog, who has made his official residence into a no-man’s land between the two sides. While Herzog’s efforts to intervene in the political arena have yet to bear fruit, he demonstrated his skills as a mediator last week by successfully bringing about a reconciliation between Angel Bakeries and the chareidi community.

The Angel boycott developed out of a misstep by Omer Bar Lev, the minister of police in the previous government and a former commander in the IDF’s elite Sayeret Matkal unit.

Bar Lev has an old friend from the Sayeret by the name of Yaron Angel, a colorful figure sporting a full, bushy beard and a cowboy hat who happens to be the CEO of Angel Bakeries. After Bar Lev’s term as police minister ended and he retired from politics, Angel appointed his old friend as chairman of the board of directors of Angel Bakeries — one of Israel’s largest bread-makers.

Out of ignorance, stupidity, or a combination thereof, Bar Lev showed up last month in Bnei Brak outside the Ponevezh yeshivah to join members of the Brothers in Arms protest group. They were there demonstrating against the draft deferral for chareidi yeshivah bochurim, and Bar Lev was perceived as having shown disrespect to the Ponevezh rosh yeshivah, Rav Gershon Edelstein ztz”l.

The selfie Bar Lev took at the protest and uploaded to social media caused a furor in the chareidi community, which is a key part of Angel’s customer base. From challahs and baked goods for Shabbos to the sliced bread served in yeshivos, Angel’s products have been a staple in the chareidi community for decades.

Despite this, Bar Lev and Angel refused to apologize, and the chareidi community’s boycott of the chain quickly caught fire — largely because it came from the grassroots, from the heart of the community, rather than from the askan playbook.

For his part, Omer Bar Lev didn’t miss a single opportunity to miss an opportunity. Instead of apologizing immediately and cutting his losses, he entrenched himself in his position and refused to apologize, even after Rav Gershon’s passing.

Finally, before the chareidi boycott could snowball into a cherem d’Rabbeinu Gershon from which there can be no release, Yaron Angel and Omer Bar Lev had to bite the bullet, sign a letter of profuse apology, and pay a condolence call to Rav Gershon’s sons, who were sitting shivah.

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The reconciliation between Angel’s and the chareidi community didn’t occur on its own. From the initial feelers to hashing out the wording of the letter of apology, the process was overseen by a team from the president’s residence led by Shabi Rappaport, Isaac Herzog’s dynamic chareidi advisor.

The president demanded a complete apology, from Bar Lev and the owners, and from each separately. In the course of the talks, Herzog oversaw every detail until he was satisfied with the terms of the agreement. Omer Bar Lev, who came under fire on social media after the apology, rushed to an interview with Yedioth Ahronoth in which he insisted that he didn’t apologize or concede anything. But the management of Angel hurried to release a statement making it very clear that they certainly had, to the entire chareidi community.

President Herzog got another achievement under his belt, at a time when reconciliation is a dirty word in Israel. Now all that remains to be seen is whether he can cure Israeli politics as well.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 965)