Now that Seder night is free of social restrictions due to the COVID-19 pandemic, President Isaac Herzog and his wife, Michal – who are hosting their first Seder at the President’s Residence in Jerusalem – will revert to the time-honored custom of hosting lone soldiers. In addition, they will also host an immigrant family from Ukraine that arrived in Israel last month after crossing into Poland.
The two lone soldiers – a male and a female – are from Costa Rica and Argentina, respectively. The new immigrants being hosted are Yelena and her two children, Vadim, 9, and Yevgenyi, 2 1/2. While they will be happy to be in a pleasant social milieu, they will be sad thinking about their husband and father, who had to stay behind to fight for Ukraine.
The three Herzog sons, Noam, Matan and Ro’i, will also be in attendance.
The Seder will be conducted fully in accordance with tradition, with a lot of Judaica in the table setting and in the conversation.
It should be remembered that the president is the grandson of the first chief rabbi of Israel, whose name he bears, and that his father, who was the sixth president, was a student at the Mercaz Harav and Hebron yeshivot, thus it is a given that the president is more than familiar with all the Passover customs and songs, though the manner in which he conducts the Seder may be somewhat of a new experience for his guests.