This past weekend, Yossi Sarid — the most thoroughly Israeli of this country’s leaders — passed away while watching the weekly news in which he played such a central role for so many years. Sarid — regardless of how one feels about his politics — was one of Israel’s greats. His departure heralds the loss of one of the most lucid, tenacious and principled public figures the country has ever produced — a man who came to embody the sabra in all its bewildering and marvelous complexity.

Yossi Sarid lived and breathed and fought for an ethical Israel responsible for its own destiny both externally and domestically. He was an intrepid warrior in the battle for social justice, pluralism of conscience and, above all, a secure peace between Israel and its neighbors. His vision of an enlightened Israel was a compass which guided his own career and pointed the road for those who shared his worldview. One the longest-serving of Israel’s parliamentarians (and ultimately Minister of the Environment and then Minister of Education) he never swayed from the dictates of his convictions. In his thoughts and actions, he came to embody the Israeli anti-hero who ultimately symbolized the stuff of which true heroes are made.

Sarid’s weapons — unlike those of many of his political cohorts — were not honed on the battlefield. He had at his disposal his pen (technologically-challenged until his very last day, he used any writing implement and scrap of paper available to jot down his thoughts, craft his speeches and write his columns), along with his stunning oratorical power. Yossi Sarid was a true master of the Hebrew language: one who could use the word to chide and embrace, to criticize and to create, to berate and to expose, to rally and at the same time to act. Less known beyond the confines of Israel because of his preference for using the language of the bible as an instrument for Jewish renewal in its reconstructed homeland, he nevertheless exemplified the notions of openness and tolerance on which vibrant democracies thrive.

In many respects, the unassuming Yossi Sarid was the antithesis of the magnetic public figure. He was unprepossessing and humble in the extreme. He did not have an ostentatious bone in his body (as Amos Oz said in his eulogy, “Yossi Sarid was thin when he entered the Knesset and was thin when he departed 32 years later”). He was often grumpy to the point of being off-putting. And, like so many elected officials, he had an inflated ego which translated into considerable doses of ambition and arrogance.

Read the article in full at Times of Israel.