Visakhapatnam: AP chief minister YS Jaganmohan Reddy will be going on his first overseas trip since assuming office in May, to Israel and the United States in August. The visit is billed as a private one because Reddy will be accompanied by his family and not a government delegation.

The date of the visit to Israel is expected to be finalised at a meeting with Ron Malka, the Israeli ambassador to India, on Friday. Malka will be travelling to Vijayawada to meet the CM.

According to sources aware of Malka’s visit, the CM will be travelling to Israel, retracing the footsteps of his father, late Y S Rajasekhara Reddy, who went on a pilgrimage to Israel soon after the elections in May 2009. Jagan had accompanied his father during that visit.

Sources said Reddy will spend two days in Israel, during which he is expected to visit Bethlehem, the birthplace of Jesus Christ. Reddy, a Protestant, is also expected to take a dip in Jordan river. His late father had also taken a dip in the same river. “The visit to Israel could be for Thanksgiving. The late YSR had also travelled to Israel after winning the assembly elections in May 2009,” the source said.

The CM, who got his diplomatic passport last week, will be travelling to the United States from Israel. He and his family are expected to be present at the fall-semester commencement of his daughter at an American university. Fall semesters at US universities begin in August.

Malka will be the first ambassador to call on Jagan, who took over as chief minister on May 30. Malka, an academic, was nominated to the post of ambassador to India by Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu in September last year.

