Background
Ofira Navon was born in Tel Aviv, to Batya and Eliezer Resnikov, Prisoners of Zion from Russia.
Ofira Navon was born in Tel Aviv, to Batya and Eliezer Resnikov, Prisoners of Zion from Russia.
She earned an Master of Arts in education and psychology, and had professional certification in rehabilitation psychology from Columbia University. She and Yitzhak Navon had two children, Naama and Erez. During her husband"s presidency, from 1978 to 1983, Navon raised the profile of the president"s wife.
, 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. 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.