# List of Jewish heads of state and government

This short description is INTENTIONALLY "none" &#x2D; please see WP:SDNONE before you consider changing it! This is a list of former and current heads of state and heads of government who were / are of Jewish or have a largely Jewish heritage, other than the heads of state and government of Israel. This list includes de facto heads of state and government but does not include acting, caretaker, interim, representative, transitional or temporary heads of state and government.

## Heads of state and heads of government

| S.No. | Name | Office | Country | Term | Term | Birthplace | Ancestry |
| 1 | Samuel ibn Nagrella | Grand Vizier and Nagid | Taifa of Granada, Al-Andalus | 1027 | 1055 | Cordoba, Al-Andalus | Sephardic Jewish |
| 2 | Yosef ibn Nagrella | Grand Vizier and Nagid | Taifa of Granada, Al-Andalus | 1055 | 30 December 1066 | Granada, Al-Andalus | Sephardic Jewish |
| 3 | Joseph Nasi | Duke of Naxos | Duchy of the Archipelago | 1566 | 1579 | Kingdom of Portugal | Portuguese Jewish |
| 4 | Luis de Carvajal y de la Cueva | Governor of the New Kingdom of León | New Kingdom of León | 1580 | 1588 | Mogadouro, Kingdom of Portugal | Portuguese Jewish |
| 5 | Gabriel Milan | Governor of The Danish West Indies | The Danish West Indies | 7 May 1684 | 5 July 1686 | Glückstadt, Germany | Sephardic Jewish |
| 6 | Juan Lindo | President of El Salvador | El Salvador | 28 June 1841 | 1 February 1842 | Tegucigalpa, Honduras | Sephardic Jewish |
| 6 | Juan Lindo | President of Honduras | Honduras | 2 February 1847 | 1 February 1852 | Tegucigalpa, Honduras | Sephardic Jewish |
| 7 | Benjamin Disraeli | Prime Minister of the United Kingdom | United Kingdom | 27 February 1868 | 1 December 1868 | Bloomsbury, Middlesex, England, United Kingdom | British Jewish, Italian Jewish |
| 7 | Benjamin Disraeli | Prime Minister of the United Kingdom | United Kingdom | 20 February 1874 | 21 April 1880 | Bloomsbury, Middlesex, England, United Kingdom | British Jewish, Italian Jewish |
| 8 | Julius Vogel | Premier of New Zealand | New Zealand | 8 April 1873 | 6 July 1875 | London, United Kingdom | English Jewish |
| 8 | Julius Vogel | Premier of New Zealand | New Zealand | 15 February 1876 | 1 September 1876 | London, United Kingdom | English Jewish |
| 9 | Vaiben Louis Solomon | Premier of South Australia | South Australia | 1 December 1899 | 8 December 1899 | Adelaide, South Australia | Australian Jewish |
| 10 | Matthew Nathan | Governor of the Gold Coast | Gold Coast | 17 December 1900 | 9 February 1904 | London, United Kingdom | English Jewish |
| 10 | Matthew Nathan | Governor of Hong Kong | Hong Kong | 29 July 1904 | 29 July 1907 | London, United Kingdom | English Jewish |
| 10 | Matthew Nathan | Governor of Natal | Colony of Natal | 2 September 1907 | 23 December 1909 | London, United Kingdom | English Jewish |
| 11 | Alessandro Fortis | Prime Minister of Italy | Italy | 28 March 1905 | 8 February 1906 | Forlì, Papal States | Italian Jewish |
| 12 | Sidney Sonnino | Prime Minister of Italy | Italy | 8 February 1906 | 29 May 1906 | Pisa, Grand Duchy of Tuscany | Italian Jewish father, raised Christian |
| 12 | Sidney Sonnino | Prime Minister of Italy | Italy | 11 December 1909 | 31 March 1910 | Pisa, Grand Duchy of Tuscany | Italian Jewish father, raised Christian |
| 13 | Luigi Luzzatti | Prime Minister of Italy | Italy | 31 March 1910 | 30 March 1911 | Venice, Kingdom of Lombardy–Venetia | Italian Jewish |
| 14 | Francisco Henríquez y Carvajal | President of the Dominican Republic | Dominican Republic | 31 July 1916 | 29 November 1916 | Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic | Dutch Jewish, Sephardic Jewish |
| 15 | Yakov Sverdlov | Chairman of All-Russian Central Executive Committee | Soviet Russia | 21 November 1917 | 16 March 1919 | Nizhny Novgorod, Russian Empire | Russian Jewish |
| 16 | Abraham Schrameck | Governor-general of French Madagascar | French Madagascar | 1 August 1918 | 12 July 1919 | Saint-Étienne, France | French Jewish |
| 17 | Kurt Eisner | Minister President of the People's State of Bavaria | Bavaria | 8 November 1918 | 21 February 1919 | Berlin, Kingdom of Prussia | German Jewish |
| 18 | Béla Kun | De facto leaderPeople's Commissar of Foreign Affairs | Hungary | 21 March 1919 | 1 August 1919 | Lele, Austria-Hungary | Hungarian Jewish |
| 19 | Eugen Leviné | Leader of the Bavarian Soviet Republic | Bavarian Soviet Republic | 12 April 1919 | 3 May 1919 | St Petersburg, Russian Empire | Russian Jewish |
| 20 | Alexandre Millerand | Prime Minister of France | France | 20 January 1920 | 24 September 1920 | Paris, France | His mother is Alsatian Jewish |
| 20 | Alexandre Millerand | President of France | France | 23 September 1920 | 11 June 1924 | Paris, France | His mother is Alsatian Jewish |
| 21 | Herbert Samuel, 1st Viscount Samuel | High Commissioner for Palestine | Mandatory Palestine | 1 July 1920 | 30 June 1925 | Liverpool, England | British Jewish |
| 22 | Rufus Isaacs, 1st Marquess of Reading | Viceroy and Governor-General of India | British India | 2 April 1921 | 3 April 1926 | London, England | British Jewish |
| 23 | Zigfrīds Anna Meierovics | Prime Minister of Latvia | Latvia | 19 June 1921 | 26 January 1923 | Durbe, Latvia | Latvian Jewish |
| 23 | Zigfrīds Anna Meierovics | Prime Minister of Latvia | Latvia | 28 June 1923 | 26 January 1924 | Durbe, Latvia | Latvian Jewish |
| 24 | Francis Bell | Prime Minister of New Zealand | New Zealand | 14 May 1925 | 30 May 1925 | Nelson, New Zealand | New Zealand Jew |
| 25 | Sir Isaac Isaacs | Governor-General of Australia | Australia | 21 January 1931 | 23 January 1936 | Melbourne, Australia | Polish Jewish |
| 26 | Léon Blum | Prime Minister of France | France | 4 June 1936 | 22 June 1937 | Paris, France | French Jewish, Alsatian Jewish |
| 26 | Léon Blum | Prime Minister of France | France | 13 March 1938 | 10 April 1938 | Paris, France | French Jewish, Alsatian Jewish |
| 26 | Léon Blum | Prime Minister of France | France | 16 December 1946 | 22 January 1947 | Paris, France | French Jewish, Alsatian Jewish |
| 27 | Léon Geismar | Acting governor-general of French West Africa | French West Africa | 14 July 1938 | 28 October 1938 | Dambach-la-Ville, Alsace-Lorraine | Alsatian Jewish |
| 28 | Mátyás Rákosi | General Secretary of the MKP/MDP | Hungary | 23 February 1945 | 18 July 1956 | Ada, Austria-Hungary | Hungarian Jewish |
| 28 | Mátyás Rákosi | Prime Minister of Hungary | Hungary | 14 August 1952 | 4 July 1953 | Ada, Austria-Hungary | Hungarian Jewish |
| 29 | Andrew Cohen | Governor of Uganda | Uganda Protectorate | January 1952 | 1957 | Berkhamsted, United Kingdom | British Jewish |
| 30 | René Mayer | Prime Minister of France | France | 8 January 1953 | 28 June 1953 | Paris, France | French Jewish father |
| 31 | Pierre Mendès France | Prime Minister of France | France | 18 June 1954 | 23 February 1955 | Paris, France | French Jewish, Portuguese Jewish |
| 32 | David Marshall | Chief Minister of Singapore | Singapore | 6 April 1955 | 7 June 1956 | Singapore, Straits Settlements | Baghdadi Jewish |
| 33 | Ernő Gerő | General Secretary of the Hungarian Working People's Party | Hungary | 18 July 1956 | 25 October 1956 | Terbegec, Austria-Hungary | Hungarian Jewish |
| 34 | Roy Welensky | Prime Minister of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland | Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland | 2 November 1956 | 31 December 1963 | Salisbury, Southern Rhodesia | Lithuanian Jewish father, identified as "half Jewish" |
| 35 | Michel Debré | Prime Minister of France | France | 8 January 1959 | 14 April 1962 | Paris, France | Alsatian Jewish, raised Catholic |
| 36 | Joshua Hassan | Chief Minister of Gibraltar | Gibraltar | 11 August 1964 | 6 August 1969 | Gibraltar | Gibraltarian Jewish, Sephardic Jewish |
| 36 | Joshua Hassan | Chief Minister of Gibraltar | Gibraltar | 25 June 1972 | 8 December 1987 | Gibraltar | Gibraltarian Jewish, Sephardic Jewish |
| 37 | Bruno Kreisky | Chancellor of Austria | Austria | 21 April 1970 | 24 May 1983 | Vienna, Austria-Hungary | Austrian Jewish |
| 38 | Sir Zelman Cowen | Governor-General of Australia | Australia | 8 December 1977 | 29 July 1982 | Melbourne, Australia | Australian Jewish, Belarusian Jewish |
| 39 | Léon Kengo wa Dondo | Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo | Democratic Republic of the Congo | 5 November 1982 | 31 October 1986 | Libenge, Belgian Congo | Polish Jewish father |
| 39 | Léon Kengo wa Dondo | Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo | Democratic Republic of the Congo | 26 November 1988 | 4 May 1990 | Libenge, Belgian Congo | Polish Jewish father |
| 39 | Léon Kengo wa Dondo | Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo | Democratic Republic of the Congo | 6 July 1994 | 2 April 1997 | Libenge, Belgian Congo | Polish Jewish father |
| 40 | Laurent Fabius | Prime Minister of France | France | 17 July 1984 | 20 March 1986 | Paris, France | French Jewish, parents converted to Catholicism and was raised Catholic |
| 41 | Eric Arturo Delvalle | President of Panama | Panama | 28 September 1985 | 26 February 1988 | Panama City, Panama | Panamanian Jewish, Portuguese Jewish |
| 42 | Henny Eman | Prime Minister of Aruba | Aruba | 1 January 1986 | 9 February 1989 | Aruba | Aruban Jewish |
| 42 | Henny Eman | Prime Minister of Aruba | Aruba | 29 July 1994 | 30 October 2001 | Aruba | Aruban Jewish |
| 43 | Petre Roman | Prime Minister of Romania | Romania | 20 June 1990 | 1 October 1991 | Bucharest, Kingdom of Romania | Hungarian Jewish father, showed no interest in Jewish affairs and was married in a Romanian Orthodox wedding ceremony |
| 44 | József Antall | Prime Minister of Hungary | Hungary | 23 May 1990 | 12 December 1993 | Budapest, Hungary | Hungarian Jewish |
| 45 | Ruth Dreifuss | Member of Swiss Federal Council | Switzerland | 10 March 1993 | 31 December 2002 | St. Gallen, Switzerland | Swiss Jewish |
| 45 | Ruth Dreifuss | President of Switzerland | Switzerland | 1 January 1999 | 31 December 1999 | St. Gallen, Switzerland | Swiss Jewish |
| 46 | Efraín Goldenberg | Prime Minister of Peru | Peru | 17 February 1994 | 28 July 1995 | Lima, Peru | Peruvian Jewish, Romanian Jewish |
| 47 | Gyula Horn | Prime Minister of Hungary | Hungary | 15 July 1994 | 6 July 1998 | Budapest, Hungary | Hungarian Jewish |
| 48 | Janet Jagan | President of Guyana | Guyana | 19 December 1997 | 11 August 1999 | Chicago, Illinois, United States | Guyanese Jewish, American Jewish |
| 49 | Sergey Kiriyenko | Prime Minister of Russia | Russia | 23 March 1998 | 23 August 1998 | Sukhumi, Abkhaz ASSR, Georgian SSR, Soviet Union | Russian Jewish, Georgian Jewish |
| 50 | Yevgeny Primakov | Prime Minister of Russia | Russia | 11 September 1998 | 12 May 1999 | Kiev, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union | Russian Jewish |
| 51 | Ricardo Maduro | President of Honduras | Honduras | 27 January 2002 | 27 January 2006 | Panama | Honduran Jewish, Portuguese Jewish |
| 52 | Zurab Zhvania | Prime Minister of Georgia | Georgia | 17 February 2004 | 3 February 2005 | Tbilisi, Georgian SSR, Soviet Union | Armenian Jewish |
| 53 | Mikhail Fradkov | Prime Minister of Russia | Russia | 5 March 2004 | 14 September 2007 | Samara, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union | Russian Jewish |
| 54 | Pedro Pablo Kuczynski | Prime Minister of Peru | Peru | 16 August 2005 | 27 July 2006 | Lima, Peru | German Jewish, Peruvian Jewish |
| 54 | Pedro Pablo Kuczynski | President of Peru | Peru | 28 July 2016 | 23 March 2018 | Lima, Peru | German Jewish, Peruvian Jewish |
| 55 | Yehude Simon | Prime Minister of Peru | Peru | 14 October 2008 | 11 July 2009 | Lima, Peru | Peruvian Jewish |
| 56 | John Key | Prime Minister of New Zealand | New Zealand | 19 November 2008 | 12 December 2016 | Auckland, New Zealand | Austrian Jewish mother, he is agnostic and regularly attended church |
| 57 | Jan Fischer | Prime Minister of the Czech Republic | Czech Republic | 8 May 2009 | 13 July 2010 | Prague, Czechoslovakia | Czech Jewish |
| 58 | Mike Eman | Prime Minister of Aruba | Aruba | 30 October 2009 | 17 November 2017 | Oranjestad, Aruba | Aruban Jewish |
| 59 | Salomón Lerner Ghitis | Prime Minister of Peru | Peru | 28 July 2011 | 10 December 2011 | Lima, Peru | Peruvian Jewish |
| 60 | Volodymyr Groysman | Prime Minister of Ukraine | Ukraine | 14 April 2016 | 29 August 2019 | Vinnytsia, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union | Ukrainian Jewish |
| 61 | Volodymyr Zelenskyy | President of Ukraine | Ukraine | 20 May 2019 | Incumbent | Kryvyi Rih, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union | Ukrainian Jewish |
| 62 | Laurentino Cortizo | President of Panama | Panama | 1 July 2019 | 1 July 2024 | Panama City, Panama | Greek Jewish mother, but is a devout Roman Catholic |
| 63 | Egils Levits | President of Latvia | Latvia | 8 July 2019 | 8 July 2023 | Riga, Latvian SSR, Soviet Union | Latvian Jewish father, does not identify as Jewish |
| 64 | Sophie Wilmès | Prime Minister of Belgium | Belgium | 27 October 2019 | 1 October 2020 | Ixelles, Brussels, Belgium | Belgian Jewish |
| 65 | Mikhail Mishustin | Prime Minister of Russia | Russia | 16 January 2020 | Incumbent | Lobnya, Russian SFSR | Russian Jewish |
| 66 | Élisabeth Borne | Prime Minister of France | France | 16 May 2022 | 9 January 2024 | Paris, France | French Jewish, Belgian Jewish, Polish Jewish |
| 67 | Aleksandr Rozenberg | Prime Minister of Transnistria | Transnistria | 30 May 2022 | Incumbent | Ladyzhyn, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union | Ukrainian Jewish |
| 68 | Gabriel Attal | Prime Minister of France | France | 9 January 2024 | 5 September 2024 | Clamart, France | French Jewish, Tunisian Jewish |
| 69 | Claudia Sheinbaum | President of Mexico | Mexico | 1 October 2024 | Incumbent | Mexico City, Mexico | Lithuanian Jewish, Bulgarian Jewish |

## Heads of state and heads of government with minor 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, 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". 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.
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. He referred publicly to his Jewish grandfather. Jorge Sampaio is a former president of Portugal whose maternal grandmother was a Sephardi Jew from Morocco. Sampaio said that he is proud of his Jewish ancestry. Xavier Bettel who has served as the prime minister of Luxembourg since 2013 said he has a Polish Jewish grandfather. Former Romanian President Ion Iliescu stated that his grandfather was a Russian Jew who took refuge in Romania.
Helmut Schmidt, a former chancellor of West Germany from 1974 to 1982 had Jewish ancestry. His father was born to a German Jewish banker, Ludwig Gumpel, and a Christian waitress, Friederike Wenzel, and then covertly adopted, although this was kept a family secret for many years. Schmidt served in Hitler's Wehrmacht, while managing to hide his Jewish roots from the Nazi regime. Árpád Göncz, a former president of Hungary from 1990 to 2000, had a Jewish maternal grandfather.
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. Qarase's mother is the daughter of John Herman Ma'afu Bowman, who had Jewish parents, Alexander Bowman and Sara Annette. 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".
Some heads of state claim to have Jewish ancestry, although this is not confirmed. Mexican President Francisco I. Madero's family was widely thought to have been of Portuguese-Jewish heritage. 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". Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa who has served as the president of Portugal since 2016 claimed that his mother had Jewish ancestry.