I'd like to close out the week by quoting part of this tribute to a great man who passed away yesterday.
David Bar-Illan, a former Jerusalem Post executive editor and columnist, internationally acclaimed concert pianist, and senior adviser to former prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu, will be buried at 10:30 a.m. Thursday in Jerusalem's Har Hamenuhot cemetery.
Bar-Illan, 73, died Tuesday night at his Jerusalem home, three-and-a-half years after suffering a massive heart attack which had left him incapacitated.
[ . . . ]
Widely respected by supporters and detractors alike, he was one of the most articulate voices on the Right opposing the Oslo Accords during the 1990s.
"David Bar-Illan was a great pianist, writer, and defender of the State," said Minister-without-Portfolio in charge of Jerusalem and Diaspora affairs Natan Sharansky, expressing admiration for Bar-Illan's "cool and sharp" analysis and his passion.
"David Bar-Illan was an Israeli Zionist patriot in his whole being," said Netanyahu on hearing of his death. "He was an outstanding artist who sacrificed years of wonderful musical creativity to engage in journalistic and public activity to help his land and his people. He was a Renaissance man with an international education and an amazing writer whose power was in his deep faith in the righteousness of our people."
After Netanyahu's defeat in 1999, Bar-Illan made a brief return to the Post as columnist, before falling ill in February 2000, just six months before the outbreak of Palestinian violence that he envisioned and wrote about years earlier.
Bar-Illan is survived by his wife Beverly, sisters Nogah and Ella, children Kim, Daniela, and Jeremy, and step-sons Anthony and Brian, and 10 grandchildren.
Zichrono l'vracha. May his memory be a blessing.
Shabbat Shalom.
