Isaac Navon

Isaac Navon was born in 1921 in Jerusalem

Navon was born in Jerusalem in 1921 to Yosef and Miryam Navon. His father's family were Sephardi Jews who came to Jerusalem from Turkey in 1670, and his mother's family came from Morocco. He studied at Takhemoni and at the Hebrew University high school, and later studied Arabic and Islamic studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

As a teenager he joined Betar and then the group that preceded the Irgun, but he later adopted socialist views and joined the Haganah. After the state was founded he served as a diplomat in Uruguay.

In 1951 he became political secretary to David Ben-Gurion and later headed his bureau until 1963. He then led a campaign against illiteracy at the Ministry of Education and was elected to the Knesset for Rafi in 1965.

The Knesset elected him president in 1978. In office he met Egyptian president Anwar Sadat and supported a judicial inquiry into the 1982 Sabra and Shatila massacre.

He returned to politics in 1984 and served as minister of education and culture until 1990, remaining in the Knesset until 1992. He also wrote plays based on Sephardic folklore. He died in Jerusalem in 2015.