Former Israeli President Yitzhak Navon passes away

He was a top aide to the Jewish country’s founding father David Ben-Gurion.

Yitzhak Navon, who served as Israel’s fifth President, has died. He was 94.

Mr. Navon was a top aide to Israel’s founding father David Ben-Gurion. Later he embarked on a political career in the Labour Party. He served as President between 1978 and 1983 and had a lengthy term as Education Minister. He quit politics in 1992 and became a successful author and playwright.

Labour Party leader Isaac Herzog remembered Mr. Navon as a member of Israel’s founding generation who “built our national home with their own hands.”

“Moderating, embracing voice”

Centrist Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid called him a “moderating, embracing, respecting voice that is so missing these days.”

Mr. Navon was born in Jerusalem to a Sephardi family descended from Spanish Jews expelled in the inquisition of 1492.