A Few Words Following the Funeral of Ruth Dayan (Column 368)

With God’s help

Disclaimer: This post was translated from Hebrew using AI (ChatGPT 5 Thinking), so there may be inaccuracies or nuances lost. If something seems unclear, please refer to the Hebrew original or contact us for clarification.

In memory of Ruth Dayan, of blessed memory

Last weekend, Ruth Dayan, the former wife of Moshe Dayan, passed away at nearly 104. Ruth was a singular personality whose biography is tightly interwoven with the history of the state. She lived through and experienced many of the central events we went through and was acquainted with remarkable figures in Israel (such as Wingate, Yitzhak Sadeh, and many others) and around the world. She initiated important enterprises in the social, artistic, and economic spheres, such as “Maskit,” Variety, and more; she worked with new immigrants and other vulnerable populations, and of course she was a pronounced woman of the Left, in her quiet way. Thus, for example, she maintained a close friendship with Suha Arafat and her mother until her final days, and she devoted no small effort to Palestinian groups and to Jewish–Arab relations. That is probably what worked against her as a candidate submitted year after year for the Israel Prize, which she never received. The all-embracing “position” I discussed in Column 362 operates on these playing fields as well, and that’s a pity (cf. Israel Prize for Yeshayahu Leibowitz).

My wife, Dafna, was in close contact with her in recent years, and so we felt the need to attend the funeral held this past Sunday at noon in Nahalal. The funeral was a fascinating experience for me, and in Ruth’s memory I will write here a few reflections that arose for me around the event.

The participants at the funeral were a combination of two groups: the minority who organized the event were rugged, tanned moshavniks from Nahalal—callused hands, dressed in jeans, T-shirts, and work shoes. Alongside them was the majority group composed of family and friends, most of them pampered Tel Avivians, generally younger. To me this symbolized Ruth’s biography and that of her family (which likewise moved from Nahalal to Tel Aviv in every sense), but perhaps also the trajectory of the Israeli Left in general—from the pioneering settlement movement and the Labor movement (national and militarist, worshipping strength and persistence) into the bosom of left-wing liberalism, softer and alienated.

I was surprised that the funeral proceeded with a religious hue. Her granddaughter recited the Kaddish translated into Hebrew (an excellent idea—I am completely in favor, just as should be done with the ketubah), without the presence of members of the burial society (hevra kadisha), without the customary murmuring of Psalms and other stultifying rituals as is common in our parts. Instead, several songs of the Land of Israel were played (“Perhaps These Things Never Happened at All,” “Will There Indeed Yet Come Days,” and the like), which certainly suited the atmosphere. The feeling was that a piece of history was being buried here and gathered back to Mother Earth and to the Land of Israel (at the event, as with Ruth herself, one felt deep leftism and universalism together with a profound connection to the land and the state, as once characterized the Labor movement). It was hard not to think how much we all owe this group, which in recent years has undergone such a deep—and at times exasperating—transformation.

The speeches at the funeral sounded like an internal discourse of fanatical, iron-willed Balfour-protest warriors, speaking among themselves and sharing with one another their Balfour adventures and their dogged war for the state that was “stolen” from them. There were oaths of loyalty to the path and adherence to the legacy. To me it sounded exactly like at a Haredi funeral, where it does not occur to anyone that among those present there might be someone who does not fully identify with these statements, with this atmosphere, and with the conceptions it reflects. It is fitting and proper at such an event to speak about her views and also those of her family, and to describe them to the listeners as lines in her portrait and in her memory; but my sense there was that this was not description but preaching, as if these were principles that should be self-evident to everyone. I have been through similar events before, and I have concluded that there are all kinds of religious types who live in their own bubble and cannot see a meter beyond it.

It is instructive to view these matters against the backdrop of the immense and unusual complexity of the Dayan family, filled with highly talented figures, complicated and conflicted with themselves and with others, kicking and rebelling against anything that moves—and all, of course, in full public view (through the media, literature, journalism, and cinema). And despite all this, the discourse at the funeral reflected a picture of family and friends forming a completely uniform group, without a drop of complexity and/or rebellion. The atmosphere was entirely monochromatic (= single-toned), without grating notes or unusual voices (true, there is also Uzi Dayan, the “black sheep,” who was not felt there). My sense was that these folks constitute a religious-ideological group in every respect. I must say that this uniformity somewhat put me off on the one hand, but on the other side of the coin I was very impressed by their success in passing the torch and this heritage to the next generations. The “religious” education apparently works for them. In the population at large in Israel this group is almost an endangered species (and one could feel there the sadness and even a bit of despair over that), yet it turns out there are groups and families in which they manage to preserve this atmosphere and these values and transmit them well to their descendants. I felt they succeed in this no less—and perhaps more—than the staunchest of the “dossim” (religious types), among whom there is usually, nevertheless, some rebellious segment.

And returning to Ruth Dayan, of blessed memory: it is regrettable that her passing and her funeral received no place in the media, which is occupied mainly with Big Brother, with Bibi and anti-Bibi, and with other uninteresting and unimportant trivialities. Figures of her sort apparently do not interest anyone, and that is a pity. Incidentally, a similar feeling has come over me when great rabbis passed away, whose names meant nothing to the general public. Even when the media dedicates space to one rabbi or another, it is usually a rabbi who held a public role or voice (preferably political). Intellectuals and singular personalities are not news in our milieu, and that is a pity.

It seems to me worthwhile for all of us to take this opportunity to strengthen the antithesis to everything I have described here: to develop a focus on matters that are important and beneficial instead of the nonsense that fills our daily public discourse in this country; to engage with interesting and exceptional people and not with political or media celebrities; to listen to different voices and let them be heard; not to let “position” take an exclusive place in our considerations and in our attitude toward people and events. True, Ruth was, in my view, a leftist to the point of near-derangement—almost inconceivable to me. Friendship with the family of a mass murderer like Arafat is, for me, shocking. And yet, anyone who knew her knew that this came from an authentic place and a radiant personality, and it is not right to let our stance overshadow that (see Columns 29–30 on complex appreciation of people). She was a true lover of humanity, a woman of integrity, a role model for her family and for many other groups, endowed with impressive and distinctive traits. Her roots were planted deep in the land and the state, in harmony with her personality and her universalist outlook. It is a pity for those who are gone and will not be replaced.

May her memory be a blessing.