Tape is leaked as Sara Netanyahu faces lawsuit from employee who says she treated staff like slaves

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

An audio recording has emerged of the Israeli prime minister’s wife furiously scolding a family publicist over a gossip column she said failed to highlight her professional qualifications.



The leak comes amid intense scrutiny in Israel of Sara Netanyahu, who was last year ordered to pay tens of thousands of pounds in damages to two former domestic workers who accused her of bullying. She faces a third lawsuit from an employee who alleged staff were treated like “slaves”.

The Israeli site Walla! News published the tape in which Netanyahu, a child psychologist, is heard screaming at an aide who had reportedly placed news of her fundraising activities in a 2009 column. The piece had mentioned how the premier’s wife was “obligated” to public service.

“I’m doing it. As a professional, as an ed-u-cated woman. A psy-cho-lo-gist,” Netanyahu can be heard shouting, exclaiming each syllable. “BA, MA,” she screams, referring to her bachelor and master’s degrees.

“But it says in the first sentence that you’re a psychologist,” the publicist replies. Netanyahu responds sharply, ordering him to reprimand the editor.

“This prime minister’s wife does public service every day,” she shouts, the audio crackling. “In her professional capacity.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Audio of Sara Netanyahu published by Walla! News

Benjamin Netanyahu defended his wife on Facebook, saying everyone “gets angry and says a few words that he didn’t mean”. He said the media had for decades ignored his wife’s public activities, which included helping children with cancer, bereaved families, and Holocaust survivors.

The family have faced a barrage of accusations from employees during the past few years.

In the most high-profile civil case against Sara Netanyahu, a former chief caretaker of her residence, Meni Naftali, successfully sued her for wrongful dismissal, alleging verbal and emotional abuse.

Naftali told a labour court of an “atmosphere of fear among the employees, who were afraid of being victims of minor incidents that would escalate into difficult, rage-filled outbursts, especially after she would drink large amounts of alcohol that I and others would bring to her room daily”. He later won around £20,000 in damages for unpaid overtime and poor treatment.

Naftali has since become a key figure in police investigations against Sara Netanyahu that allege she diverted tens of thousands of pounds of state money for meal expenses. The prime minister has denounced the accusations as baseless.

In October, an unnamed 24-year-old ultra-Orthodox Jewish woman who worked as a cleaner alleged in a lawsuit that Netanyahu had verbally abused her. The lawsuit alleges that the prime minister’s wife regarded employees as “slaves” and preferred highly religious women who she believed were more introverted and harder working. The Netanyahus have vehemently denied the allegations.



The Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth, which is critical of the prime minister, ran a column by Sima Kadmon on Monday saying the leaked recording had exonerated Sara Netanyahu’s “victims”.

“For those disenfranchised, paralysed people who were branded as liars – at long last this golden piece of evidence,” the column said.