President of Israel
head of state of Israel
The president of the State of Israel (Hebrew: נְשִׂיא מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, romanized: Nesi Medinat Yisra'el or נְשִׂיא הַמְדִינָה, Nesi HaMedina; Arabic: رئيس دولة إسرائيل, romanized: Ra'īs Daūlat Isrāʾīl) is the head of state of Israel. The president is mostly, though not entirely, ceremonial; actual executive power is vested in the cabinet led by the prime minister. The incumbent president is Isaac Herzog, who took office on 7 July 2021. Presidents are elected by the Knesset for a single seven-year term.
Election
The president of Israel is elected by an absolute majority in the Knesset, by secret ballot. If no candidate receives an absolute majority of votes in the first or second round of voting, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated in each subsequent round, if needed until only two remain. From 1949 to 2000, the president was elected for a five-year term, and was allowed to serve up to two terms in office. Since 2000, the president serves a single seven-year term.
Any Israeli resident citizen is eligible to run for president; as there is no minimum age of candidacy, this would even allow a minor to hypothetically be elected. An age limit of 40 was considered, but rejected by the Knesset as unnecessary.
The public source identifies “President of Israel” as head of state of Israel. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around President, Israel and head.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 7, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q327948. Authority coordinates are 31.770, 35.214. 1 of 5 selected statements include explicit references; 3 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2021, 1949 and 2000.
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This entry incorporates text from “President of Israel” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.