Netanyahu’s son Yair adopts new name in latest family name change
Yair Netanyahu, the son of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has changed his name to Yonatan Hon, Haaretz reported on Wednesday.
The Israeli newspaper said tax-withholding approvals issued in December 2024 carried his previous name, Yair Netanyahu.
This year, the same identifying details appeared under the new name, including a fictional address listed as "Balfour 0".
Yair Netanyahu has used a similar surname before. On social media, he previously identified himself as "Yair Hoon". Hoon was the original surname of his mother Sara’s father, Shmuel, before the family changed it to Ben Artzi.
The reported name change comes as the Netanyahu family name faces growing political and legal complications, internationally and in the United States.
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Benjamin Netanyahu has become an increasingly toxic figure in US politics, while the International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant against him over war crimes and crimes against humanity following the genoicde in Gaza.
Yair has faced scrutiny over his business links in the US and past controversies tied to the family’s relationship with wealthy figures.
In 2018, Israeli television broadcast a recording in which Yair appeared to boast outside a strip club that his father had helped advance a multibillion-dollar gas deal benefiting a tycoon.
Yair has since had links to various businesses in the US, including on the far-right.
Benjamin Netanyahu himself faces three corruption investigations in Israel.
A tradition of name changes
This is not the first time members of the Netanyahu family have changed their surname.
Yair's brother, Avner, changed his name about five years ago to Avi Segal, Haaretz reported. Under that name, he bought an apartment in Oxford, England, for £502,000 ($672,000) in cash, according to Israeli newspapers, in a bid to avoid scrutiny and attention.
Segal was the original surname of Tzila, Benjamin Netanyahu’s mother and the grandmother of Yair and Avner, before she married Benzion Netanyahu, the family patriarch.
Benjamin Netanyahu also used a different name while living in the United States in the 1980s – Ben Nitai – saying later that he had considered settling in America.
The practice stretches back further. Netanyahu’s father, Benzion Mileikowsky, changed his name to Benzion Netanyahu after moving from Poland to help in the colonisations of historic Palestine by the Zionist movement during the British colonial mandate in the 1920s.
That reflected a wider Zionist practice of taking on Hebrew names instead of European ones, as the settlers sought to recast themselves as indigenous to the land they were colonising.
Several Israeli leaders followed the same trend. David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister, was born David Gruen in Poland. Moshe Sharett was born Moshe Shertok in Russia. Levi Eshkol was born Levi Yitzhak Shkolnik in Russia. Golda Meir was born Golda Mabovitch in Ukraine.
Yitzhak Shamir was born Yitzhak Yezernitsky in Russia, Shimon Peres was born Szymon Perski in Poland, Ehud Barak was born Ehud Brog in Mandatory Palestine, and Ariel Sharon was born Arik Scheinermann in Mandatory Palestine.
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