Ofira Navon

Ofira Resnikov Navon (Hebrew: אופירה נבון; January 1, 1936 – August 22, 1993) was the wife of Yitzhak Navon, the fifth President of Israel.

Ofira Navon אופירה נבון
First Lady of Israel
In office 29 May 1978 – 5 May 1983
President	Yitzhak Navon
Preceded by	Nina Katzir
Succeeded by	Aura Herzog
Personal details
Born	1 January 1936 Tel Aviv, Mandatory Palestine
Died	22 August 1993 (aged 57) Jerusalem

Biography

Ofira Navon was born in Tel Aviv to Batya (née Spitkovski) and Eliezer Reznikov-Erez, both originally from Russia. Her father died when she was 8. She earned an MA in education and psychology from the University of Georgia, where she was also a member of the Delta Phi Epsilon sorority, and had professional certification in rehabilitation psychology from Columbia University. She and Yitzhak Navon had two children, Naama and Erez.^[1]

As First Lady

Ofira Navon park, Jerusalem

During her husband's presidency, from 1978 to 1983, Navon raised the profile of the president's wife. As First Lady, Navon established the President's Council for the Welfare of the Child. She worked with Jehan Sadat, wife of the Egyptian president, on rehabilitation projects for soldiers wounded in the Arab-Israeli conflict. Navon also pushed for an international treaty to protect children caught in war zones.^[1]

Navon was the first Israeli-born presidential wife. With her Ashkenazi upbringing, her marriage to a Sephardi Jew was unusual at the time. The fact that they were parents of small children was another first for the presidency in Israel.^[1]

Illness and death

In 1979, Navon was diagnosed with breast cancer and rejected a mastectomy, opting for chemotherapy and a lumpectomy. Later she argued for the right of patients to determine their own treatment. In August 1993, Navon died of leukemia at Hadassah Medical Center in Jerusalem at the age of 57.^[1]