Court overturns ruling ordering ex-employee to pay compensation to Sara Netanyahu

By Jeremy Sharon

You will receive email alerts from this author. Manage alert preferences on your profile page

You will no longer receive email alerts from this author. Manage alert preferences on your profile page

14 September 2026, 9:27 pm

Edit

Jeremy Sharon is The Times of Israel’s legal affairs and settlements reporter

Sara Netanyahu attends a cornerstone-laying ceremony for the Atarot Heritage Center in northern Jerusalem, July 5, 2026. (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)

The Tel Aviv Magistrate’s Court overturns a ruling ordering Sylvie Genesia, a former worker in the Prime Minister’s Residence, to pay Sara Netanyahu NIS 100,000 ($32,750), after Genesia lost a defamation suit against the prime minister’s wife on technical grounds earlier this year.

Genesia lost the defamation suit filed by Netanyahu against her, due to the repeated failure by her former attorney to submit closing arguments to the court on time, first in December 2025 and then again in May 2026.

But the court annuls that decision, with Judge Ilan Rosen ruling that the failure to submit the filings was due entirely to the conduct of Genesia’s previous attorney and not due to any failing of hers.

Genesia’s new attorney Shaul Ida, who took the case pro bono, filed closing arguments for his client when requesting the cancellation of the NIS 100,000 payment. Netanyahu’s lawyer now has until October 15 to file his closing arguments, after which a full ruling will be given.

“Following the judge’s explicit statements in the two rulings issued so far, and after the Netanyahu family lawyer explicitly admitted that the suit was intended so that other employees ‘would see and be deterred,’ in his own words, there is no longer any doubt that this is an intimidation suit brought by the most powerful woman in the country, with the involvement of the prime minister himself, against a vulnerable, resourceless domestic worker,” says Ida, following the ruling.

Genesia, who worked as a member of the cleaning staff at the Prime Minister’s Residence on Balfour Street in Jerusalem, sued Netanyahu and the HR company that employed her in the Jerusalem Labor Court for NIS 650,000 ($179,400) in damages for mistreatment she says she experienced while working at the residence.

Genesia claimed she was subject to harassment, humiliation, and repeated violations of her working conditions, including Sara Netanyahu calling her names and, on one occasion, throwing an iron at her. Those proceedings have, however, been dismissed.