“I am a proud Litvak,” Israeli president Isaac Herzog told an audience of LJC members and students from the Sholem Aleichem ORT Gymnasium at the Choral Synagogue in Vilnius Monday last week.

He and wife Michal watched a performance by younger students from the school and the president fielded questions from students afterwards.

“Jews have been living in Lithuania 600 years now. This is our home, our gomeland, while Israel is our historical homeland which we support and always weill,” Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky told the assembly.

Herzog thanked the family ub attendance of an IDF soldier who perished fighting in Gza and took selfies with the students.

He and his wife travlled to Ponar after visiting the LJC to pay their respects to the Holocaust victims who were murdered there and throughout Lithuania.

Isaac is the son of Chaim Herzog who served twice as president of Israel. Chaim Herzog served with British forces in WWII and helped liberate concentration camps. He was the one who identified Heinrich Himmler among other Nazi POWs. Chaim’s mother Sarah Herzog was born in Radviliškis, Lithuania. Michal Herzog, Isaac’s wife, has been outspoken on the issue of sexual violence by Hamas against Israeli victims, both those murdered and held in captivity.