Excepting the modern state of Israel, and the ancient Jewish states of the same region, has there ever been a head of state or head of government who actively practised Judaism? Note that I am not referring to Jews in an ethnic, cultural, or ancestral sense, but only in a religious one.
I have heard Janet Jagan, the prime minister and later president of Guyana, often described as Jewish, but as she was a Communist and Marxist I suspect she was an atheist. Likewise British prime minister Benjamin Disraeli had Jewish parentage, but converted to Anglicanism long before he entered politics.
Benjamin Disraeli, the famous British Prime Minister was born Jewish (but later converted).
And, although not what you asked, but peripherally related, there have been two Jewish Mayors of Toronto (Nathan Phillips and Mel Lastman). Given Toronto’s large population, the Mayor of the city leads a larger population than do many heads of state.
More a head of government than head of state, but Sir Joshua Hassan was Chief Minister of Gilbraltar from 1964-1969, and then again from 1972-1987.
There was also, in addition to Leon Blum of France, Laurent Fabius was PM from 1984-1986. Kurt Eisner was the president of the short lived Soviet Republic of Bavaria and Bela Kun of the equally short lived Hungarian Soviet Republic, but as they were both Communists, it’s likely they were atheists themselves.
There was also Julius Vogel, PM of New Zealand from 1873-1875, Ruth Dreifuss, President of the Swiss Confederation in 1999, Bruno Kreisky, Chancellor of Austria from 1970-1983, and Roy Welensky, Prime Minister of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland from 1956-1963.
Well if you aren’t excluding ancient/medieval rulers from outside the region of Israel/the Levant, there have been a few converts. A Himyarite king in the region of Yemen for one and, rather more extensive, at least the upper classes ( possibly more ) of the Khazar state on the Russian steppe. In the latter case that would be at least 150 years of Jewish rulers.
Adolf Hitler was reputed in some quarters to be a self-hating Jew, for what it’s worth…
Disraeli, despite his conversion, was often taunted by anti-Semites. He is quoted as replying to one particularly unpleasant MP, “Yes, I am a Jew, and when the right honourable gentleman’s ancestors were hunting wild boar in the forests of Silesia, mine were princes in the Temple of Solomon.”
Forgot to add: the current French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, had a Jewish mother but is a baptized, practicing and self-identifying Catholic. As Jewish descent is matrilineal, there are those who nevertheless consider him Jewish.
I want to be really careful of this because all Neo-Nazi literature of the past half century contains this as “fact” & I want to beat yje next poster on it to the punch but
Lenin was of one-quarter Jewish ethnic ancestry. His maternal grandfather, Israel (Alexander) Blank, was a Ukrainian Jew who was later baptized into the Russian Orthodox Church.
A great, great deal has anti-semitically been made of this (& of Trotsky’s jewishness) – if Lenin had any Jewish “identity” it has not documented. Lenin also had as much Volga German ancestry through his mother, who had a Lutheran religious identity. Much less has been made of this.
Since no one has mentioned Pierre Mendes-France, I will. He was French Premier for about 7 months in 1954-55. He withdrew French forces from Viet-Nam and was widely vilified for it by, among others, Le Pen.
I’ve read it attributed to both - more often to Disraeli, though (including in my 15th edition of Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations, in which both men are noted as having said similar things).
That was the one I was most familiar with, if only because it came up in conversation as a point of contrast during a discussion as to how Austria then elected Kurt Waldheim as State President a few years afterwards.
