Prime Minister Ehud Olmert published a special obituary following the death of the writer S. Yizhar:

“Israeli culture lost one of its greatest influences, who laid the foundations for prose literature by native Israelis; a great writer, who was, more than anything, a mentor and educator.

These days, when we are painfully summarizing the difficult days of fighting, Yizhar’s books are more relevant than ever, which for the main part, deal with the realities of war and with their hero’s confrontation with ethical decisions which the horrible reality of war presents.

Above all, Yizhar was a man of education – and it is just such a man, whose high moral character needs not be proven – who could take a stand against the call to “teaching values”, which is dangerous, in that it could mask an attempt to silence those who espouse different values.  Rather than taking hold of a list of fixed values – he preferred the process of re-examining and re-evaluating each one while constantly confronting the issues of the hour.

This is the spiritual legacy of the great teacher, S. Yizhar – devotion to the land and its beloved vistas, nurturing the Hebrew language, that magical language which flowed naturally from Yizhar like a cascading river, constant re-examination of articles and positions – and the bravery to state the truth even when it is painful.

May his memory be blessed.”