Suing for $100,000, ex-worker accuses Sara Netanyahu of verbal, physical abuse

A 61-year-old former employee of the Prime Minister’s Residence in Jerusalem has sued Sara Netanyahu for NIS 300,000 shekels ($98,000), alleging the premier’s wife verbally and physically abused him.

The Prime Minister’s Office said in a statement Thursday that the claims “have no basis, [and] do not reflect reality,” and said it would provide a detailed response to all of the allegations during the legal fight to come.

The plaintiff, Yehiel Ohev-Ami, was fired from his job cooking and cleaning for the couple some five months ago.

Among the demands, he said, was that he wipe clean the soles of the couple’s shoes every day, while making sure his “hand didn’t go inside the shoe by accident.” When he made small mistakes, such as failing to unload the laundry just right, he was allegedly subjected to “a torrent of screams and swearing.”

In the lawsuit, he claimed that Sara Netanyahu shoved him against the wall on three occasions, on one occasion shouting at him: “Who’s stupid?” and “Who’s retarded?”

He also claimed that when he returned from a smoking break, and the prime minister’s wife said he smelled of cigarettes, she told him: “I hope you get cancer,” and “If only you would die.”

Ohev-Ami claimed that he was treated poorly on a daily basis, but cites as the incident that “broke his spirit” a December 2025 exchange in which Sara Netanyahu allegedly “diagnosed” him with autism, and then demanded he pay her for it.

“I am the prime minister’s wife. I am the number one psychologist in Israel, and I have no competitors,” she was alleged to have told him. “My therapy costs a lot of money.”

Then, according to the lawsuit, she told Ohev-Ami: “I’ve diagnosed you – you’re on the autistic spectrum.” The remark touched a nerve, according to the report, because the worker had previously shared that his son had autism.

After her “diagnosis,” Ohev-Ami claimed, the premier’s wife demanded he hand over three paychecks as compensation.

According to the lawsuit, Ohev-Ami was sometimes expected to work from morning until the pre-dawn hours of the following day, and accumulated more than 100 overtime hours over the course of a month.

As a result of the workplace conditions, he said he suffered a deterioration in his health, noting that the day Sara Netanyahu “diagnosed” him as autistic, he sought treatment for chest problems, and later required a pacemaker.

The suit also accused the premier’s son Yair of inappropriate behavior, alleging that the younger Netanyahu once threw Ohev-Ami out of the residence for not having changed his bedsheets for him.

The lawsuit also took aim at the plaintiff’s de facto supervisor in the Prime Minister’s Residence, Efi Azulai, who was previously censured by the Civil Service’s Disciplinary Tribunal, but is reportedly now employed in the residence again by way of an outside provider.

In its statement in response to the report, the Prime Minister’s Office said Ohev-Ami “failed in his job after working a short time at the residence,” where he faced difficulties cooperating with other workers and meeting the demands of the job. “As a result, and after an orderly process, the decision was made to terminate his employment for professional reasons only,” it said.

Additionally, the statement said, the lawsuit was filed only after the plaintiff requested to return to work in the Prime Minister’s Residence, and was told he could not.

Ohev-Ami is not the first former employee of the prime minister’s family to allege wrongdoing by Sara Netanyahu, with accusations of abuse surfacing as far back as 1996, when Netanyahu fired her children’s nanny for “burning the soup.”

In May, an employment agency reportedly paid tens of thousands of shekels in compensation to a worker who said that Sara Netanyahu threw tomatoes and olives at her and disparaged her on a number of occasions.

In 2017, Menny Naftali, a former caretaker at the Prime Minister’s Residence, successfully sued Netanyahu and was awarded NIS 170,000 compensation (about $43,735) by the Jerusalem Labor Court. The court found that Naftali had been mistreated by Netanyahu, suffering both verbal and emotional abuse, and had been misled over his terms of employment at the residence.

Another former worker at the Prime Minister’s Residence, a 56-year-old immigrant from France whose identity has not been disclosed, sued Sara Netanyahu for mistreatment in 2020.

Last year, Sylvie Genesia, who worked as a member of the cleaning staff at the Prime Minister’s Residence on Balfour Street, sued Netanyahu and the HR company that employed her for mistreatment she said she experienced while working at the residence.

In January, the Tel Aviv Magistrate’s Court ordered Genesia to pay Sara Netanyahu NIS 120,000 ($38,000) after failing to submit necessary filings to the court on time. The judge emphasized in the ruling that it did not mean the court accepted Netanyahu’s version of events, but merely that Genesia had failed to comply with court regulations and repeated requests, and the case was therefore closed.

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