Premier Menachem Begin reportedly plans to nominate a Sephardi for President to succeed Ephraim Katzir who has announced he will not seek re-election when his five year term ends in May. Begin asked Katzir to stay on but the President, a biophysicist, wants to return to the Weizmann Institute of Science of Rehovoth.
Among those reportedly being considered by Begin are Supreme Court Justice Eliahu Many Democratic Movement for Change MK Shmuel Toledano, who was for many years the official advisor an Arab affairs under Labor governments; Dr. Andre Chouraqui, a Morocco-born scholar and author; and Labor MK Yitzhak Navon, who narrowly lost out to Katzir five years ago. The Liberal Party, one of the two major parties in Likud, is pressing the candidacy of one of its leaders, Dr. Elimelech Rimalt.
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