A Seder with the Herzogs

President Isaac Herzog and First Lady Michal Herzog will host a traditional Seder night at the President’s Residence for the first time.

Together with their three sons, the President and the First Lady will be joined for the festive meal by lone soldiers and a family of new Jewish immigrants from Ukraine, who escaped the war.

One of the President and the First Lady’s guests is Sergeant Glen Chaves, a lone soldier from Costa Rica serving in the IDF Kfir Brigade, who made aliyah because of his grandfather’s special connection to Israel and his family’s conversion. The President and First Lady will also host Cpl. Iara Lerner Turchinsky (21), a lone soldier who made aliyah from Argentina two years ago and serves in a canine unit in the Israeli Air Force.

The Ivanova family from Ukraine will also join the presidential Seder table. Ilena, the mother of the family, made aliyah from Odessa together with her two children, Vadim (9) and Yevgeny (2 ½). The father, Aleksander, was forced to stay behind in Ukraine. Ilena and her two children crossed the border with Poland in March. The Ivanova family now lives in accommodation organized by the Jewish Agency to help new Jewish immigrants from Ukraine.

The president recorded this message for Jewish communities across the globe.