Yitzhak Navon, Israeli politician, Died at 94

Yitzhak Navon was born on April 9, 1921, and died on November 7, 2015.

He was an Israeli politician, diplomat, and author.

Yitzhak served as the fifth President of Israel between 1978 and 1983 as a member of the center-left Alignment party.

He was the first Israeli president to be born in Jerusalem, then within the British Mandate for Palestine, while all previous presidents were born in and made aliyah from the Russian Empire.

Born in Jerusalem, Yitzhak is a descendant of a Sephardi family of rabbis.

On his father’s side, he is descended from Spanish Jews who settled in Turkey after the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492.

The family (Baruch Mizrahi family or Al Mashraki) moved to Jerusalem in 1670.

On his mother’s side, he is descended from the renowned Moroccan-Jewish kabbalist Chaim ibn Attar, who emigrated to Palestine and settled in Jerusalem in mid-1742.

Yitzhak studied Hebrew literature and Islamic studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

After serving in the Haganah in Jerusalem, he was sent by the Israeli foreign service to Uruguay and Argentina.

Yitzhak passed away at age 94 in November 2015.