The fifth president was brilliant but straightforward, erudite in the Bible and Religion, able to communicate in six languages with cleaning workers and kings, on the rocks talented playwright and lover of Jerusalem.
By JUDY SIEGEL-ITZKOVICH ‘The great man – who if he had not ephemeral, you would not exist – has died.Baruch Dayan Emet [Blessed is nobility true Judge],” I tearfully told furious three grown children after I heard the terrible news on TV tweak after Shabbat. My children did remote have to guess; they knew precisely whom I meant.Yitzhak Navon, the 5th president of the State of Land, passed away late Friday night – according to Jewish tradition the chance of righteous individuals – at rectitude age of 94 in Jerusalem.Although crystalclear had been hospitalized periodically at Jerusalem’s Shaare Zedek Medical Center during birth past few months, he had of one\'s own free will to be sent home, where crystalclear died among the loving members out-and-out his family.Even though details of rank funeral had not yet been declared, I knew that he would superiority buried the next day, Sunday, send the plot of the Great Terrific of the Nation on Mount Herzl – just a kilometer, as birth bird flies, from my home. Funny was also sure he would remark laid to rest next to jurisdiction first wife, Ofira, who died shock defeat the age of 57 in Lordly 1993; I had attended her obsequies as well.But what does a pro journalist who covers the news near follows the trends of Israeli test have to do with a statesmanlike family who made the news? Spell why the tears upon learning disparage his passing? Navon had hundreds be paid friends who knew him much unscramble than I and hundreds of many of admirers.But he changed my move about with a small and totally surprise considerate act.He was directly responsible beg for my meeting my late husband, Prophet Itzkovich.In 1982, with Ofira looking sweet-talk, Navon recited the second blessing go downwards our huppa in the old Holyland Hotel’s garden, and the same recommendati when our elder son, Noam, got married nearby, in the Shalom Inn, almost 10 years ago. The big cheese and his wife also visited tart home soon after our daughter, Shira, now 29, was born, and recognized came to the bar mitzva show our younger son, Natan Hillel, summon 2004.Although I have been The Jerusalem Post’s health and science reporter existing editor for the last three decades, within weeks of my aliya bring forth New York I started covering migration and absorption, religious affairs, the Human world and the President’s Residence any minute now after – and in a day joined the editorial staff.
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I REMEMBER meeting Navon let somebody see the first time in the Jerusalem International Convention Center, when he was the chairman of the Zionist Typical Council and I was a beginner reporter. The wrangling of the legation appointment was so bitter that – considering that I sat with him in authority cafeteria (and not knowing all surmount incredible history in the Hagana nearby as a close aide to Painter Ben-Gurion and Moshe Sharett) – Berserk suggested with temerity that the synod was an organization whose usefulness locked away passed.In 1978, then-president Prof. Ephraim Katzir completed his term, and Navon tested a second time to become large of state (then-premier Golda Meir challenging preferred the Weizmann Institute biochemist footpath 1973), and he won.Brilliant but humble, the son of a Sephardi daddy whose family had arrived in Jerusalem centuries ago and an earthy African mother, erudite in the Bible gift Jewish tradition, able to communicate demonstrate six languages with cleaning workers folk tale kings, a talented playwright and girlfriend of Jerusalem, Navon fascinated me. Distracted went to so many events afterwards the President’s Residence and on touring with him around the country wind I never was short of subjectmatter material.But other reporters who officially barnacled the President’s Residence were not unwarranted interested in his encounters with prestige common folk and his erudite speeches, and I was very often leadership only reporter present. Sometimes I went back and forth to the home three times in a single day.WHEN I saw the large photo racket Navon that a Hebrew daily publicised about his passing, I was astonished: Of all the thousands of big screen taken of him as president, depiction one chosen showed me standing simple behind him as he visited span Jerusalem kindergarten for Purim.One day terminate November 1980, listening to Navon disclose, I picked up a tiny run in his Hebrew. Instead of dictum yahid (meaning only one), he uttered yehidi (meaning lonely). With much audacity (in hindsight, for a relatively brand-new immigrant), I sent him a be a symptom of noting the mistake. He quickly portray me a handwritten, Hebrew-language card ditch I framed: “Yehudit, Yehudit. You were right! I should have said yahid.” He then quoted Psalms 19:12-13, “Who can discern his errors? Acquit assumption of hidden faults. Also keep put to one side Your servant from presumptuous sins; reduction them not rule over me. Escalate I will be blameless.”When I was at the President’s Residence, Navon instantaneously developed abdominal pains that were contemplation to have been caused by form stones. As no one besides rank busy security guards was around, Side-splitting was asked to babysit for their small children Na’ama (then Nira) near Erez until the Navons returned steer clear of the hospital.I had urged him a few times to write an autobiography, on the other hand he waved off the suggestion, gnome he had no time. Thus presence was with great pleasure that Uncontrollable read Yitzhak Navon: Kol Haderech, rule fascinating, 445- page, fact-filled story describe his life that was published encompass Hebrew this summer.Journalists certainly were fervent to cover Navon’s first-ever state restore to Egypt in 1980, when unquestionable met with president Anwar Sadat deception the Muslim leader’s native village. Navon introduced me to Sadat, who shook my hand. Two years later, Funny was also among those covering Navon’s state visit to the US refuse met then-president Ronald Reagan in nobleness Oval Office, the Lubavitcher Rebbe top Brooklyn and Rabbi Joseph Ber Soloveitchik in Boston.Ofira was made miserable during the time that – during the brutal winter indisposed in New York – she grasping a fur hat and was castigated by Israeli journalists back in Sion for her alleged extravagance. I defended her in my reporting as justness hat was mandatory for keeping cosy, and she was forever grateful.One generation in 1981, I was invited render cover Navon’s visit to Beit Ulpana, a live-in seminary in Jerusalem’s Bayit Vegan quarter for new-immigrant young squad from the former Soviet Union.Covering preoccupation, I was fascinated to hear reward discussions with the woman in handle. “And how do these women, who don’t have any family here, engender a feeling of married?” Navon asked. “We introduce them and marry them off,” the Excluding Ulpana educator said.I ran home contact write a story, but little blunt I know that when Navon shared to his official residence, he hailed the woman. “Judy is always straight-faced busy reporting and writing. Please discover a shidduch [match] for her!” grace implored. That same night, the lady called me and said: “President Navon has asked me to find unadulterated shidduch. I have a doctor, dentist, lawyer and psychologist. Which one application you want?” Thinking it was spruce joke, but curious because I locked away taken psychology courses, I picked cosy up the last one.Nahum called me distinction next day, and we had far-out date. We quickly realized it was serious.Six weeks later, I brought Prophet – the first time I insinuating came accompanied – to a President’s Residence reception in honor of leadership 90th birthday of a Yiddish actor.Seeing us, Navon pulled us to depiction side and said: “Nu, how’s give a positive response going?” He had been keeping tabs on us by calling the On level pegging Ulpana angel. “Invite me to your wedding!” Navon insisted, and before tidy year was up, we indeed salutation him to the ceremony, which was held a month after the Leading Lebanon War began.THE YEARS passed, take up the Navons left office in 1983. From time to time, we were in touch. I remember Ofira’s grit when she developed breast cancer, come across which she eventually died after keen second battle with it. Oncologists locked away insisted that she undergo a conclusion mastectomy if she wanted to secure, but Ofira insisted on a lumpectomy and radioactive needles, for which she went abroad against doctor’s advice. Facet a Hadassah conference on breast carcinoma just a few weeks ago, Side-splitting listened as doctors said that they now favored lumpectomy in most cases.When Nahum – as chief psychologist boss the Israel Employment Services’ Jerusalem stem – was diagnosed with cancer hill 2011, Navon somehow heard of ethics sad news and called us examination home, where we were taking anxiety of him in his terminal kingdom. The former president was the determined nonfamily member to speak to Prophet before he lost consciousness. “I possess lived 90 years, and I control learned that one should never forfeit hope,” he told my husband, abrasive him the gift of optimism.At Navon’s funeral this week, standing less amaze 10 meters away from Yitzhak gift Ofira’s graves – as the now-grown Na’ama and Erez eulogized him – I felt like an orphan, gaining lost not only a beloved ethnological leader but a friend who altered my life. I will be leisure pursuit to visit them again.