Hacham Gad Navon
Date of Birth: 5680 (1920)Date of Death: 29th of Sivan, 5766 (2006)
Hacham Gad Navon, whose name of origin is Maimon Fahima, was born to Tamar and Saul in 1920, in Marrakesh, Morocco.
He studied Torah with Hacham Yaakov Dahan and Hacham Abraham Abitbol, who presided over the yeshiva in Marrakesh. He became renowned as a gifted and brilliant Torah scholar and was ordained to the rabbinate. One of the young leaders of the Zionist movement in Morocco, he was also one of the founders of the Brit Halutzeim Dati'im (Religious Pioneers Covenant) branch in Morocco. He actively educated to Zionism, and played a part in the Hagganah's Mossad L'Aliya Bet illegal immigration mission to the Land of Israel. He moved to France after the end of the Second World War and completed his studies in Philosophy and Theology at the Sorbonne University in Paris, specializing in Islamic sects.
Hacham Gad Navon married Perla and the couple had three children, Tamar, Mira and Amiel.
In 1948, at the age of 28, he was able to immigrate to Israel. He enlisted in the Palmach as a volunteer and served in its Negev battalion's French Commando Unit. He participated in the conquest of Beer Sheva during Israel's War of Independence. At the war's end he was appointed the battalion's chaplain.
In 1951 he became the Chief Religious Officer for the Southern Command, and was subsequently appointed Military Rabbi of the Southern Command. He later served as Military Rabbi of the Northern Command.
In 1971 he was appointed Deputy Chief Rabbi of the IDF. After the Yom Kippur War of 1973, he served alongside Rabbi Mordecai Peron, Chief Rabbi of the IDF, in a special rabbinic court headed by Hacham Ovadia Yosef that dealt with the release of some 950 agunot, wives of IDF soldiers who died at war, from their bonds of marriage.
In 1977 he was appointed Chief Rabbi of the IDF and officiated in this role for 23 years.
Hacham Gad Navon spent much of his life involved in his work. Although he authored no books, he did write several important articles, including "Preventing War Agunot", published in 1977 in the No'am journal; Moving Soldiers' Corpses on the Sabbath, published in the T'humin journal in 1985; and a number of philosophical articles published in the Orhot journal.
Hacham Gad Navon passed away in 2006 in his sleep in his home in the town of Yavneh, and was buried on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem.
