JERUSALEM—The job comes with some nice perks and mostly symbolic duties, but the position, president of Israel, carries enormous prestige, potentially a great deal of influence and, ultimately, a guaranteed spot in the history books.
The race to replace Shimon Peres as head of state is getting off to a star-studded start. The latest candidate to throw his hat in the ring received the Nobel Prize in chemistry a couple of years ago. But polls show Israelis would like Peres, also a Nobel Prize winner, to stay on for another term.
Already the collection of possible candidates looks like a menagerie of overachievers.