President Reuven Rivlin described Yitzchak Navon as a “noble man” after the fifth President of Israel died on Saturday.
He called him “unceremoniously aristocratic, a president who came from the people, and whom the people greatly loved and appreciated.”
Rivlin added:
Yitzchak was a man of spirit and action, who alongside Ben-Gurion dealt with the establishment and founding of the state, and created one of the most significant works of Jewish and Israeli culture, Bustan Sefardi (“Sephardic Garden”), which became a landmark in Israeli culture.
Yitzchak the Jerusalemite, son of Jerusalemites, strove to preserve the Jewish Ladino traditions, a tradition which created a new Israeli identity, proud of its origins, and not forgetting its roots….
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.