Israel Prize-winning educator Miriam Peretz, who lost 2 sons in battle, vies to become country’s first woman president, while Isaac Herzog aims to follow in his father’s footsteps
Israel’s 120 members of Knesset will vote Wednesday for the country’s next president, in a race that pits Isaac Herzog, possibly the closest thing Israel has to royalty, against Miriam Peretz, a Moroccan-born woman who overcame the loss of two of her sons in battle to become an Israel Prize-winning educator.
Whoever is elected will replace the popular President Reuven Rivlin, whose seven-year term ends on July 9.
Herzog, 60 — the Jewish Agency chairman, a former head of the Labor party, the son of Israel’s sixth president, Chaim Herzog, and the grandson of Israel’s first chief rabbi, after whom he was named — is seen as the frontrunner. However, the secret nature of the voting process could well leave an opening for Peretz to become the first woman ever elected to the position.