Belarusian-born Roman Hoffman Officially Took Office As Head Of Mossad
- 2.06.2026, 18:45
His swearing-in ceremony took place at the intelligence agency's headquarters in Tel Aviv.
Major General Major General Roman Hoffman officially took office as head of the Mossad for a five-year term, leaving his post as military secretary to the Israeli prime minister. His swearing-in ceremony took place at the intelligence agency's headquarters in Tel Aviv. "I assume this position with humility and a sense of duty," General Hoffman said and addressed Binyamin Netanyahu: "Mr. Prime Minister, you have revealed to me the secret of leadership."
General Hoffman repatriated to Israel from Belarus with his parents in 1990, when he was 14 years old. At the time, the future head of the Mossad did not fully realize he belonged to the Jewish people. "As a teenager, detached <...>, I refused to understand why it was necessary to leave everything and go away," Hoffman noted in 2020 in a biographical essay for the IDF's National Security College.
Problems with integration and self-identification were the cause of his fights with his peers and even police record, the general admits. "The movement toward self-discovery began with an understanding of my own 'otherness': cultural resistance as a teenager in Ashdod, IDF uniforms, barbed questions from my fellow soldiers, military skirmishes with Arabs, and finally the Chief Rabbinate (a special unit of the General Staff responsible for religious discipline in military units.- Note), which at first did not want to allow me to marry here for lack of the necessary documents," Hoffman writes.
In 1995, the future head of the Mossad began serving in the IDF armored forces, to which he devoted almost 30 years. On the day of the massacre of October 7, 2023, when Hamas and related groups invaded southern Israel, Roman Hoffman personally engaged Hamas at the border and was hospitalized with severe injuries. "He lay there in the intensive care unit, seriously wounded, after he had thrown himself into the battle, and his body was riddled with bullets, but his spirit was unshaken!" - recalled President Yitzhak Herzog of his visit to Asaf HaRofeh Hospital on October 8.
As Secretary of War, General Hoffman was charged with maintaining contact with Russia on the Syrian conflict. Two months after anti-government groups toppled the regime of Bashar al-Assad on December 8, 2024, the general was instructed to travel to Moscow to discuss further cooperation on Syria.
The Mossad has previously been headed by a native of Belarus: in 1952-1963, the Israeli secret service was headed by Vitebsk-born Isser Harel.