Ex Labor chair elected as Israel's president

Israel's former Labor chairman and opposition leader Isaac Herzog was chosen by the parliament on Wednesday as the next Israeli president, a largely ceremonial position, reported Xinhua.

Speaker of the Knesset (parliament) Yariv Levin announced in a broadcast statement that Herzog was elected after winning votes of 87 lawmakers, while his rival Miriam Peretz, a conservative educator and a settler, won the votes of 26 lawmakers.

Herzog, 60, is the chairman of the Jewish Agency, a major Jewish nonprofit organization, and the son of Israel's sixth President Chaim Herzog.