Ofira Navon was the wife of Yitzhak Navon

Yitzhak Navon

Yitzhak Navon is an Israeli politician, diplomat, and author. He served as the fifth President of Israel between 1978 and 1982 as a member of the center-left Alignment party...

, the fifth President

President of Israel

The President of the State of Israel is the head of state of Israel. The position is largely an apolitical ceremonial figurehead role, with the real executive power lying in the hands of the Prime Minister. The current president is Shimon Peres who took office on 15 July 2007...

 of Israel.

Biography

Ofira Navon was born in Tel Aviv

Tel Aviv

Tel Aviv , officially Tel Aviv-Yafo , is the second most populous city in Israel, with a population of 404,400 on a land area of . The city is located on the Israeli Mediterranean coastline in west-central Israel. It is the largest and most populous city in the metropolitan area of Gush Dan, with...

, to Batya and Eliezer Resnikov, Prisoners of Zion

Refusenik (Soviet Union)

Refusenik was an unofficial term for individuals, typically but not exclusively, Soviet Jews, who were denied permission to emigrate abroad by the authorities of the former Soviet Union and other countries of the Eastern bloc...

 from Russia

Russia

Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

. She earned an MA in education and psychology, and had professional certification in rehabilitation psychology from Columbia University

Columbia University

Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...

. She and Yitzhak Navon had two children, Naama and Erez.

As First Lady

During her husband's presidency, from 1978 to 1983, Navon raised the profile of the president's wife. As First Lady

First Lady

First Lady or First Gentlemanis the unofficial title used in some countries for the spouse of an elected head of state.It is not normally used to refer to the spouse or partner of a prime minister; the husband or wife of the British Prime Minister is usually informally referred to as prime...

, Navon established the Presidents Council for the Welfare of the Child. She worked with Jihan 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.

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.

Illness and death

In 1979, Navon was diagnosed with breast cancer

Breast cancer

Breast cancer is cancer originating from breast tissue, most commonly from the inner lining of milk ducts or the lobules that supply the ducts with milk. Cancers originating from ducts are known as ductal carcinomas; those originating from lobules are known as lobular carcinomas...

 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

Hadassah Medical Center

Hadassah Medical Center is a medical organization that operates two University hospitals at Ein Kerem and Mount Scopus in Jerusalem, Israel, as well as schools of medicine, dentistry, nursing, and pharmacology affiliated with the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.The hospital was founded by Hadassah,...

in Jerusalem at the age of 57.