In memory of Mel Brooks — who understood, long ago, that the most powerful weapon against the powerful is laughter.

— A Throne Comedy, In Memory of Mel Brooks

By Andrew Klein

Prologue: A Duke’s Royal Dream

In July 2026, the President of Israel, Isaac Herzog, sat before the cameras of the American Christian network TBN, his face as solemn as a rabbi about to deliver the ultimate truth, and told the world: “My family lineage is incredible… We are descendants of King David.”

A pause. Let that sink in. And then — laughter.

Because if that line had appeared in a Mel Brooks script, it would have been the punchline of the decade: a man named Herzog — German for “Duke” — a scion of an Eastern European rabbinic family from Łomża, Poland, claiming descent from David, the shepherd-king of Bethlehem who slew Goliath. Even Brooks himself could not have written it better.

Act I: The Mathematics of Lineage

Let us do a little arithmetic.

King David lived approximately between 1035 and 970 BCE — roughly 3,000 years ago. The Herzog family’s documented lineage — the Eastern European rabbinic line — begins, as far as reliable records go, around the mid-19th century, with Rabbi Naphtali Hirsh Herzog, a Hasidic leader from Łomża.

Even if we assume that every single mother in the Herzog family line — across thirty centuries — was Jewish, we are still left with a small problem: who was keeping the records between the 1st century and the 19th?

And as one commentator has pointed out, the Herzog family are descendants of the Khazars — Turkic tribes who converted to Judaism en masse in the 9th century CE. The Khazar conversion took place roughly 1,700 years after King David. By the 9th century, if every mother in the previous centuries had been Jewish, the Khazar ancestors would have had to be… what, exactly?

It is like claiming descent from Julius Caesar — only to discover your family tree only goes back to a Germanic tribal chief in the Middle Ages.

Act II: What’s in a Name?

Herzog means “Duke” in German. In Polish, it derives from the same root — a noble title.

It is not Ben-David (Son of David). It is not Ben-Yishai (Son of Jesse). It is Herzog — Duke. A Germanic noble title, adopted by an Ashkenazi family, now being used to claim descent from a Judahite shepherd-king.

It is as if someone named “King” claimed to be descended from King Arthur. The only problem: Arthur’s legend is also a myth.

Act III: The Other Herzog — A Dissenting Voice in the Family

Speaking of myths: the archaeologist Ze’ev Herzog — of the same surname — shook Israel to its core in 1999 when he publicly declared that archaeology had found no evidence for the patriarchs, the Exodus, or King David.

As one historian put it: “No David — no discovery.” Another scholar compared the historicity of King David to that of King Arthur. Another archaeologist at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem dismissed the “evidence” as a political fiction.

One Herzog claims he is descended from King David. The other Herzog says King David probably didn’t exist. Even Mel Brooks could not have written a better twist.

Act IV: The Rabbis Who “Wrote It Down”

Herzog claims his lineage was “written down by rabbis.”

The question is: which rabbis? And when?

If those records were written 250 to 400 years after King David’s death, they are about as reliable as a list of King Arthur’s Knights of the Round Table — a story concocted centuries later. And the Herzog family’s reliable records only go back to the 19th century.

Final Act: The Throne Comedy

When a Polish duke, a descendant of Khazar converts, a member of an Ashkenazi rabbinic family, claims descent from King David — the shepherd, the poet-king — we are not witnessing history. We are witnessing myth-making.

The only thing missing is Mel Brooks himself, riding in on a horse, waving a fictional sword, shouting: “It’s good to be the king!”

Because at the end of the day, this story is not about King David. It is about power. And when a modern president needs a myth to legitimise his rule, he reaches for a family tree from Łomża, Poland, and says: “I am descended from King David.”

And the true King simply smiles.

Because power fades. But laughter? Laughter lasts forever.

Andrew Klein

The Patrician’s Watch