Hen Mazzig

Israel just held one of the most important election in its history and nobody won. Netanyahu has 53 seats. Eisenkot has 48. You need 61. Netanyahu’s only path runs through people who ran on replacing him. Eisenkot’s only path runs through the Arab parties, which won 19 seats, the most in Israel’s history, and which every party in his bloc promised not to touch. Almost half of the country voted for Netanyahu and his coalition partners after October 7. Think about that. Then think about the other half, which flew in from around the world (including me) to vote against him and still came up short. The highest turnout Israel has ever seen, and the country split exactly down the middle. Somebody is about to break a promise. The only question is who. I explain the whole thing in the video. The full analysis, including what I think should happen now, below. #Israel #IsraelElections #Elections #Palestine #Palestinians

Israeli elections have officially ended. Exit polls are in, and nobody has 61. All four mainstream channels have Netanyahu’s bloc at 50 and Eisenkot’s bloc at 52 or 53. Likud is the largest party with 24 or 25 seats, Yashar is second with 21 to 23, and Bennett’s B’Yachad has 12 to 14. Channel 14, which has given Likud five to ten seats more than everyone else all year, has Netanyahu at 60. The number that changed tonight is 17 or 18. That is how many seats the Arab/Palestinian parties won, the most they have ever had in the Knesset’s history. Around 2 million Arab citizens of Israel voted in numbers nobody predicted, in the most polarized election this country has ever held. Anyone who says Arab Israelis have given up on the system should look at that number. But that number does not hand Eisenkot a government. Even with Lieberman inside and Ra’am’s support from outside, the 2021 Bennett model, he gets to 59 or 60. Still not 61. A minority government that depends on the Arab parties for every vote does not survive long. So the real story of the next few weeks is how much Eisenkot will have to pay, in portfolios and policy, to pull one more partner across the line. Netanyahu’s problem is the mirror image. His bloc dropped from 64 seats to 50, and the only party that can fill the gap is Bennett’s, which spent the whole campaign promising not to sit under him. Israel’s president will now consult with every party and task the leader with the best chance of reaching 61 with forming a government. If nobody can close a deal, the country goes to another election. Israel had one of the highest turnout in its history today. Three years after October 7, with victims still being mourned and reservists still being called up, more Israelis voted than ever before. The country is split down the middle, but it showed up. Exit polls, not final results, but they are usually close. #Israel #IsraelElections #Knesset

I know I shouldn’t be making this video. Every PR expert will tell you a content creator shouldn’t say who they’re voting for, and even the biggest pro-Israel voices are staying quiet so they don’t lose anything. But I think most of you can hold nuance, and I’d rather treat you with respect than manage you. So here it is. I’m flying to Israel tomorrow night to vote on Tuesday, since Israel has no absentee voting. In a different year, I might have chosen differently. This year I’m voting for the best future for Israel. Who, and why, in the video. If you disagree, tell me why in the comments. And as I said, while I disagree with my own family members on this elections, I still love them. I won’t hate you if you disagree with me, I promise. Most importantly, if you can vote, go out and do it. 🗳️ #Israel #IsraeliElections #Elections #Vote #בחירות

The IDF announced that the last member of the Hamas gang that took Shani Louk into Gaza on October 7th 2024 has been eliminated today. Shani was 22. She was a tattoo artist who loved music and dancing, and she went to the Nova festival to celebrate life with her friends. Hamas murdered her there, then paraded her body through the streets of Gaza while men cheered and filmed it for the world to see. Her family asked that she be remembered like this, smiling and alive, and that’s how I will always remember her. Nothing brings Shani back. When the first of these men was killed, her mother said it was only one less. But the men who did this to her are no longer walking free, and her family deserved at least that. Rest in power, Shani. 💜

A NIGHT WITH MORGAN! ✨ With a special guest, Hen Mazzig. Thursday, November 26th, 2026. @thestageatlumiere London. UPDATE: The event is now sold out 🙌 #London #events #jewish #israelimusic

Most of my week happens on a screen. I write, I post, and I read what comes back, and a lot of what comes back is ugly. This trip is different. On a Tuesday night in Winnipeg, people filled Congregation Shaarey Zedek beyond capacity to listen to an Iraqi-Tunisian Jew from Israel who speaks about identity. I had never been to their city. They came anyway, and they stayed after to tell me about their parents and their kids and what it’s like to be Jewish there right now. Two days later, it was another sold-out event at Sutton Place Synagogue in New York, then the Weitzman Museum in Philadelphia with my friend who’s like family, chef Michael Solomonov, and last night, it was Shaare Zion Beth-El in Montreal. I know the hate is rising. I see it every morning before I’ve had my coffee. But I stood inside four buildings so far on this trip with people who are not going anywhere. I realized I needed to meet them far more than they needed to hear me. Thank you, all of you. I’m taking this week with me.

It’s my birthday, and yesterday was our first anniversary! A year ago in Santorini I stood under a chuppah with Marc in front of a hundred of our best friends and family who had flown in from London, Tel Aviv, New York and Los Angeles, and I said the words my ancestors have been saying, in the same language: “If I forget you, Jerusalem.” And today it’s Yom Kippur, and I’ve been thinking about what it means that all three landed in the same 48 hours. On Yom Kippur we ask to be written into the book of life. I used to hear that as a plea. This year it sounds more like a description. I look at these photos and I see a life that people tried very hard to convince me I couldn’t have. An Israeli Jew, a Mizrahi kid from a family that lost everything, marrying the man he loves, with his family and his rabbi and his people around him. That is being written into the book of life. That is what it looks like. To everyone who danced with us, cried with us, and held us up this year, thank you. To Marc, I’d choose you again in every language I have, for the rest of time. Gmar chatima tova. May you all be sealed for a good year, and may it include something you were told you couldn’t have.

Tonight the airport closes, the roads empty, and nine million people stop at once. Nobody ordered it. This is what Jews look like when we don’t have to ask permission to be Jewish. My grandparents fasted in Baghdad and Tunis with the shutters closed. Their grandchildren fast in a country that closes the airport for them. There is no other place on earth where this happens. That is the whole argument for Israel in one quiet day. Gmar Chatima Tovah everyone! #Israel #YomKippur #Jewish #JewishHoliday