Veteran journalist Moti Kirschenbaum dies at 76

Veteran Israeli journalist and Israel Prize recipient Mordechai (Moti) Kirschenbaum died Friday at 76.

Kirschenbaum, a former director-general of the Israel Broadcasting Authority and one of the founders of Israeli television, suffered a heart attack, according to Hebrew media reports.

His funeral will be held at 10 a.m. Sunday in his hometown of Mikhmoret.

The media personality and documentary director was also a co-host of Channel 10’s “London et Kirschenbaum” talk show with Yaron London. In 1976, he was awarded the prestigious Israel Prize for his contributions to Israeli media.

He had celebrated his 76th birthday on Thursday.

With the announcement of his death, tributes poured in from Israeli journalists and politicians.

President Reuven Rivlin praised Kirschenbaum as a “journalist of the highest order” with the gift of “presenting the truth without compromise, and enriching all of our imaginations and horizons.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the newsman an Israeli media pioneer, “a tough but fair interviewer possessing great intellectual curiosity.” The country, he said, would miss his voice.

“Moti Kirschenbaum was generous,” wrote Yesh Atid party leader Yair Lapid, a former journalist himself. “This is an underrated quality, generosity. He was able to spread to others his talent, his warmth, his capacity to love… He was confident enough to let others flourish. He had the rare quality that made the people around him discover their own talents. He was my friend.”