Yitzhak Navon to lie in state before Jerusalem burial Sunday

Former Israeli president Yitzhak Navon, who died Friday at age 94, will lie in state Sunday morning before a burial attended by the country’s leadership at Jerusalem’s Mount Herzl cemetery, officials said Saturday, as politicians and others remembered him as a beloved and influential figure.

The public will be able to view the coffin of Navon at the President’s Residence in central Jerusalem from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m.

At the cemetery, eulogies will be given by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, President Reuven Rivlin, former president Shimon Peres and members of the Navon family, the President’s Residence said. The funeral will also be open to the public.

Navon, the country’s fifth president, died Friday night, his family said.

A Jerusalem native whose family traced its roots in the city back 300 years, after the Spanish Inquisition, Navon was a key adviser to David Ben-Gurion and a respected Labor politician, who also served a number of diplomatic roles, as well as writing plays and books.

He served as president from 1978 to 1983, returning to the Knesset after declining to run for a second term.

President Reuven Rivlin called Navon “a noble man, unceremoniously aristocratic, a president who came from the people, and whom the people greatly loved and appreciated.”

He “strove to preserve the Jewish Ladino traditions, a tradition which created a new Israeli identity, proud of its origins, and not forgetting its roots,” Rivlin said in a statement.

Rivlin also remembered Navon as a president who “created a new style and practice for the presidency” and was not afraid to take a stand for what he believed in, as when he threatened to resign following the Sabra and Shatilla massacre in Lebanon in 1982.

“The State of Israel has today lost a beloved son, a president of the people, one who never saw himself above the people, but to whom we all looked up in love and admiration,” Rivlin said in a statement.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expressed “deep sorrow” over Navon’s passing.

“I was always impressed by the depth of his education, his openness to everyone and his deep love for the people of Israel and its heritage,” a statement from his office read. “As president, author and playwright he was active in advancing unity among Israel’s various communities, commemorating Sephardic Jewish communities and in promoting awareness of the history of the Jerusalem in which he was born and lived his life. Navon will be remembered as one of the finest of the nation and among its greatest builders.”

Zionist Union chief and opposition leader Isaac Herzog said Navon’s “cultural, educational and (political) activities are a legacy of striving to social justice, peace and brotherhood among the nations.”

“Navon … devoted his life to the country, was a beloved president admired by his people and was a voice of morality and ethical courage,” he wrote on Facebook.

Contemporary Shimon Peres expressed his sorrow at the loss of a “friend in heart and soul for more than half a century… To the nation of Israel he was a beloved president and mentor,” Peres said.

The former president told the Navon family: “We are bidding farewell today to one of the greatest of our people, who bore the wisdom of the ages and who sang in our hearts the splendid song of the city of Jerusalem. Yitzhak Navon was not only a beloved president … he was unparalleled in inspiring love for the nation and the nation loved him in return.”

Senior Zionist Union MK Tzipi Livni hailed him as “a proud Sephardi who brought awareness of Sephardic-Jerusalemite culture to all of us through his writing.”

She said Navon “will always be remembered as a beloved president, who represented the beautiful and special face of Israel, who united its different aspects, and who brought pride to us all.”

Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid called Navon “a unifying man and a unifying president” whose focus was on “moderation.” Navon’s legacy, said Lapid, is the imperative “to stand fearlessly against the extremists of right and left.”

Meretz’s Zehava Galon mourned the death of “a man of peace,” who had “insisted on bringing Sephardi traditions into the education system and boosting the study of Arabic, and who threatened to resign the presidency unless a commission of inquiry was established into the (1982) Sabra and Shatila massacre.” Navon was a man who understood the need for Israel to remain a deeply moral country, she said.

In his tribute, Likud MK Yoel Hasson said: “President Yitzhak Navon, of blessed memory, was a great leader, but no less a creator who devoted his time and activities to preserving the culture of Spanish Jewry, through works such as Bustan Sephardi (Spanish Orchard). He knew how to unite and weave Israel’s social fabric, both through his works and also his actions as a leader and as a politician. Zionism and Israel’s heritage were a way of life for him, and thus he should be remembered. May his memory be a blessing.”