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Media Credit: Courtesy Photo Former Israeli President Yitzhak Navon

Former Israeli President Yitzhak Navon received an Honorary Doctorate of Laws degree at FIU in a ceremony on Sunday. The event also served to officially inaugurate The Navon Program for the Studies of Sephardic and Oriental Jewry, part of the Institute of Judaic and Near Eastern Studies at FIU.

"It is very appropriate that this important new program be at an institution like FIU in South Florida. Given the fact that Sephardim are, after all, Hispanic Jews by origin, it's natural that the program would be located in one of the largest Hispanic and Jewish population centers in the world," President Modesto Maidique said.

Yovel, a non-profit organization for the increased awareness of Judaic culture with a focus on Sephardic and Oriental Jewry, issued a $600,000 grant to FIU for the creation of the program. The founders of Yovel chose to name the program after Navon, who served as president of Israel between 1978 and 1983, because of his status as the first person of Sephardic heritage to hold that office and his many contributions to the Sephardic community.

"Sephardic" refers to Jews who originated in Spain or Portugal, but has been commonly used to refer to any Jews who are not Ashkenazi. Navon's family has lived in Israel for over 300 years and can trace its ancestry back to the expulsion of Jews from Spain in 1492.

"You have here a group of people who really contributed to Judaism greatly, but [were] never acknowledged for their contribution, and this is what we are going to do," Professor Zion Zohar, director of the Sephardic Studies program said. "We're going to educate, we're going to research, we're going to discover and uncover all that material and help people to be aware of these great contributors."

"I have always been convinced that the study of the Sephardic heritage could be of great benefit to understand better the nature of human beings and the complexity of the world they inhabit," Yovel President David Kadoch said.

FIU is the fourth university in the United States to implement a program in Sephardic and Oriental Studies. Although the program is now in its second year, the inauguration of the program was delayed until this year because of the events of Sept. 11.

Both Yovel and Navon commended FIU on its diversity and stated that as a reason for choosing FIU to host the program. Navon recognized several of FIU's accomplishments but said "one of the more exciting aspects in my eyes is the wonderful diversity of the student body."

Before ending his speech, Navon commented on the current situation in Israel and around the world.

"Even as we battle against terror, I bid you to extend a hand in peace and hope to see adversaries do the same," he said.

He ended by reciting "A Box of Crayons," a poem about peace by a 10-year-old girl.

"I had a box of crayons . . . I had no red for the blood of the wounded; I had no black for the orphans' grief; I had no white for the faces of the dead. . . but I had green for the blossoms of spring; I had blue for brilliant heavens, and I had pink for rest and dreams. So I sat down and drew peace."