Navon, Isaac Eliyahu
NAVON, ISAAC ELIYAHU
NAVON, ISAAC ELIYAHU (1859–1952), Israeli composer and poet. Born in Adrianople (Edirne), Turkey, he taught in a Hebrew school established by his father in Constantinople and wrote for Jewish newspapers. He also helped to reorganize the Maftirim fraternity of Adrianople (most of whose members had immigrated to Constantinople), and to publish their songbook Shirei Yisrael be-Ere? ha-Kedem (1921), which contained a number of his own poems and a foreword by *Bialik. In 1929 Navon settled in Jerusalem, later in Tel Aviv, and devoted himself to spreading the Sephardi musical tradition. Some of the songs he collected or composed entered into the Israeli folksong tradition, notably "Ni??anei Shalom," "?addesh ke-Kedem Yameinu," and "Gizratekh Tavnit Nogah." He published further poems of his own in 1932.
bibliography:
M.D. Gaon, in: I.E. Navon, Yinnon (1932), introd.; I. Levy (ed.), Yonah Homiyyah, Mi-Shirei Yi??ak Eliyahu Navon (1950), includes music; Barkai, in: Hallel, 1 (1930), 45–47; L. Saminsky, Music of the Ghetto and the Bible (1934), 159, 161; Bayer, in: Ta?lil, 7 (1967), 149; Tidhar, 2 (1947), 728–9.
[Bathja Bayer]