Navon, Yitzhak

Born in Jerusalem , at that time liberated by British troops from the rule of the Ottoman Empire . On the part of his father, he is a descendant of one of the oldest families of Sephardic Jews , Baruch Mizrahi (Al Mashraki), who settled in Turkey after the expulsion of Jews from Spain in 1492 and settled in Jerusalem in 1670 . On the part of his mother, a Moroccan Jewess, his ancestor was the famous Kabbalist Haim bin Atar (also known as “Or Haim”).

Yitzhak Navon went to study at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem , where he studied pedagogy, Islamic culture, and Jewish literature .

From childhood, Yitzhak owned both Hebrew and Arabic. He knew 6 languages. His first language was the language of the Jewish exiles from Spain Ladino . Navon also knew Yiddish , which was then spoken by millions of Jews in Central and Eastern Europe ^[1] and hundreds of thousands of returnees from there to the country of Israel . Subsequently, he also mastered English well, widely spoken during the British Mandate in Palestine , and knowing close to the medieval Spanish Ladino, he also mastered the modern Spanish language , which helped him in diplomatic work in South America .

After graduation, he taught Arabic in primary and secondary schools in Jerusalem.

Since 1946, he served in Hagan , where he headed until 1949 the Jerusalem Division for Combating Arab Terror .

After the creation of the state, Israel was sent to the diplomatic service in Uruguay and Argentina , where he stayed until 1951 .

In 1951, Yitzhak Navon was appointed Secretary of Political Affairs in the Office of the Minister of Foreign Affairs Moshe Charet , and from 1952 to 1963 he headed the Office of the Head of Government David Ben Gurion , and then Moshe Charet when he was Prime Minister.

In 1963, Navon became the head of the department of the Ministry of Culture and Education, where he worked until 1965 .

Yitzhak Navon was one of Ben Gurion's closest associates. In 1965, after the split of the MAPAI party , of which he was a member, Navon, following Ben-Gurion, entered the breakaway party of MAPAI and the RAFI and in the same year was elected from it as a deputy of the Knesset of the 6th convocation.

Member of Parliament

Yitzhak Navon was a member of the Knesset on the 6th ( 1965 - 1969 ), 7th ( 1969 - 1974 ), 8th ( 1974 - 1977 ), 9th ( 1977 - 1981 ), 11th ( 1984 - 1988 ) and 12th ( 1988 - 1992 ) convocations.

Presidency of the Knesset

In the Knesset of the 6th and 7th convocations - Deputy Chairman of the Knesset.

Commission Positions

• The 6th Knesset is a member of the Education and Culture Commission, a member of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Commission.
• The 7th Knesset is a member of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Commission, a member of the commission for the appointment of Muslim judges.
• Knesset of the 8th convocation - chairman of the commission on foreign affairs and defense, member of the commission on foreign affairs and defense, member of the commission for the appointment of Muslim judges.
• The 9th, 11th and 12th Knesset are members of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Commission.

Participation in Party Factions

• Knesset of the 6th convocation - List of RAFI workers, Avoda party , Ma'arah bloc of socialist parties.
• Knesset of the 7th, 8th, 9th, 11th convocation - Maarah.
• Knesset of the 12th convocation - Maarah, Labor (Avoda) party.

Government Activities

• 11th Knesset, Government 21 and 22 - Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Education and Culture.
• Knesset of the 12th convocation, Government 23 - Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Education and Culture.

In 1978, the block of socialist parties Maarah was in opposition. Despite this, Yitzhak Navon, with the broad support of both the coalition and the opposition, was elected the fifth president of Israel under the secret ballot of Knesset members at the age of 57. He stayed in this post until 1983 .

In 1980, Yitzhak Navon became the first Israeli president to visit Egypt . He delivered a speech in Arabic to the Egyptian parliament.

Navon was an active supporter of a judicial commission investigating the role of Israel in the tragedy that occurred in the Lebanese refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila during the Lebanon War (1982) .

In 1983, Navon did not stand for another five-year presidential term.

The President of Israel is the formal head of state, but his duties are mostly ceremonial ^[2] .

He is obliged to play the role of “president of all Israelis”, standing above political and other camps and conflicts. The same behavior is expected from ex-presidents at the end of their cadets, and most really adhered to this rule. The only exception so far has been Yitzhak Navon. After being president, he decided to return to party politics.

In 1983, polls showed that Yitzhak Navon was more popular in the Avoda party than its chairman, Shimon Peres . Fugitive Arab Navona made him very popular among Arab voters and Jewish immigrants from the Maghreb . But Perez convinced him to abandon his claim to the post of prime minister. In 1984, he was re-elected to the Knesset and became Minister of Education. In this post, he spent a lot of work on the final elimination of illiteracy among elderly repatriates from Arab countries. He sat in the governments of national unity 1984-1988 and 1988-1990.

Yitzhak Navon remained in the Knesset until 1992, after which he left politics. Since then, he has been engaged in extensive public activities.

For many years, Navon was the head of the public council of the Neot Kedumim Biblical Nature Reserve, in which experts gathered all the plants mentioned in Tanakh and the Talmud , chairman of the board of trustees of the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Ballet, the National Office of Ladino Language Culture, etc. Yitzhak Navon was honorary president of " Abraham Foundation ”, whose goal is to promote activities aimed at mutual understanding and peaceful coexistence of Jews and Arabs.

Navon is the author of a number of short stories in the style of the Talmudic Haggadah . He wrote the collection of poems “Romansero Sfaradi” (“Spanish Romansero”, 1968) and the text of the musical play “Bustan Sfaradi” (“Spanish Garden”, 1970), which tell in stylized folklore form about the life and culture of Jerusalem Sephardic families. Impressed by the Six Day War (1967) , he wrote a poem in prose, “Sheshet Hayayim Veshivat Hashearim” (Six Days and Seven Gates, 1967 ). "Bustan Sfaradi" staged at the Habima Theater .

Yitzhak Navon was married to Ophir Reznikov, a native (1936) of Tel Aviv , the daughter of repatriates from Russia, the winner of the beauty contest Sabra 1956 and a participant in the beauty contest in Paris ^[1] .

For a long time they had no children and the couple Navon turned to the relevant organizations with a request for adoption of the child. They received permission after 2.5 years. The girl was called Naama. And a year later they had a son, whom they called Erez.

In 1993, after a long illness, Ofira died.

In 2008, 87-year-old Yitzhak Navon married 71-year-old Miri Shafir Leventhal. Prior to the religious marriage ceremony, the couple lived together for 9 years ^[3] .

Yitzhak Navon died on November 6, 2015. ^[4]

• Yitzhak Navon . Website of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Israel. (eng.)
• Yitzhak Navon . The site of the Jewish virtual library. (eng.)
• Yitzhak Navon . Knesset site. (eng.)
• Musical works to the words of Yitzhak Navon . (Hebrew)