Israel Names Ruth Cohen-Dar as First Ambassador in Ljubljana

Ruth Cohen-Dar has been appointed Israel's first resident ambassador to Slovenia, according to a statement issued in Jerusalem on 28 June 2026 by the Appointments Committee for heads of Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs representations abroad. She is to head a new Israeli embassy in Ljubljana, the Slovenian capital, the first Israel has ever maintained in the country.

Cohen-Dar already covers Slovenia, together with Malta, as a non-resident ambassador. Before that she directed the Foreign Ministry's Department for Combating Antisemitism and Preserving the Memory of the Holocaust, and she has served in Israeli embassies in Washington, Vienna and Warsaw. Her appointment follows a decision by Foreign Minister Gideon Sa'ar to open a resident mission in Ljubljana, and the ministry said it was working to establish the embassy as soon as possible. Slovenia's new prime minister, Janez Jansa, welcomed Sa'ar's announcement, saying: “Welcome to Ljubljana. Looking forward to a new era in Israel–Slovenia relations.”

Thirty-four years of relations run out of Vienna

Slovenia is a country of about two million people at the top of the Adriatic, wedged between Italy, Austria, Hungary and Croatia, and a member of both the European Union and NATO. Israel and Slovenia established diplomatic relations on 28 April 1992, shortly after Slovenia broke away from Yugoslavia, and Slovenia opened an embassy in Tel Aviv in 1994. Israel never reciprocated with a building of its own: as a reference summary of the bilateral relationship records, the Israeli embassy in Vienna handled Slovenia as a non-resident mission for more than three decades.

That arrangement is common for small European states, but it means an ambassador visits rather than lives in the country, and consular and trade work is run from another capital. A resident embassy changes the tempo of a relationship rather than its formal status.

The government change in Ljubljana that reopened the file

The decision to open the embassy came after a sharp turn in Slovenian politics. Under the previous prime minister, Robert Golob, Slovenia recognised Palestinian statehood in May 2024, described Israel's campaign in Gaza as genocide, banned imports from West Bank settlements and became the first EU member state to prohibit arms trade with Israel, and imposed a travel ban on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in September 2025, according to The Times of Israel.

Jansa, a three-time prime minister, was returned to office by the Slovenian parliament on 22 May 2026. The Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported that within an hour of being sworn in he had the Palestinian flag taken down from a government building. Sa'ar announced the Ljubljana embassy in early June 2026, calling Jansa “a clear and steadfast friend of Israel” whose election created “a unique opportunity” after what he called years of hostility from the previous government, The Times of Israel reported.

How Israel picks the people it sends abroad

Israeli ambassadorships are not in the prime minister's personal gift. The Ministerial Committee for Foreign Service Appointments screens candidates for ambassador and consul-general posts, in the ordinary course from among serving Foreign Ministry staff, before the appointment goes to the government for approval, as The Jerusalem Post has explained. The same report notes that when Israel moves towards an election, the attorney general applies extra scrutiny to senior appointments, and that career candidates who have gone through the professional track stand on firmer legal ground than outside political nominees. Cohen-Dar's posting to Ljubljana was reported by the Post in July 2026.

What the announcement did not say

The statement gave no date for the embassy's opening, no address or staffing plan, and no indication of when Cohen-Dar would take up residence in Ljubljana. It also did not say whether she will keep her non-resident accreditation to Malta, or whether the appointment had yet cleared every stage of government approval.