Ruth Dayan passed away at the age of 103

Ruth Dayan passed away tonight (Friday) at the age of 103. Dayan was a social activist and the first wife of Chief of Staff and Defense Minister Moshe Dayan, founder of the fashion and textile company “Maskit” and the charity “Variety Israel”.

Dayan was born in Haifa as Ruth Schwartz, the eldest of two daughters to Zvi Schwartz, a lawyer born in Novoslice, and Rachel nee Klimkar, an educator born in Kishinev, both members of the Second Aliyah. Her younger sister is Rauma, who later married Ezer Weizmann. At the age of two she traveled with her parents to England for her father’s studies. At the age of 10, she returned to Eretz Israel with her family and moved to the Musrara neighborhood, and later to the Rehavia neighborhood of Jerusalem, where she studied at the Rehavia Hebrew Gymnasium and was active in the “immigrant camps.” At the age of seventeen she moved to Nahalal and attended the girls’ agricultural school. In Nahalal she met Moshe Dayan, and in 1935 the two married. From their marriage were born the politician Yael Dayan, the sculptor Udi Dayan and the film director and screenwriter Asi Dayan. One of her grandchildren is Maariv screenwriter and journalist Lior Dayan. In 1945, the family moved to Tel Aviv.

During the War of Independence, Moshe Dayan was appointed commander of Jerusalem, and the family subsequently moved to the ministry’s residence in Villa Leah in the Rehavia neighborhood of Jerusalem.

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In 1949, Dayan worked as an agricultural instructor in the new immigrant settlements in the Jerusalem Corridor. She and folklore researcher Zohara Wilbush noticed the women’s skill in the fields of handicrafts and their creations. Dayan decided to try and turn the occupation into a source of livelihood and cultural preservation, thus taking a turn from the official intention of the state that tried to educate the immigrants to engage in agriculture. The project to locate the women (and the men, most of them goldsmiths of Yemeni origin), instruct them and initial marketing of their works is called the “Eshet Chayil” project.

A year later, she established the Friends Circle of Sheba Medical Center in Tel Hashomer, and served for years as honorary president of the department.

In 1952 she left the “Eshet Chayil” project and accompanied her husband who was sent to a course for senior commanders in Britain, where she began to study weaving and spinning with the aim of continuing this work with her return to Israel.

A year after returning to Israel, in 1954, with the encouragement and support of Labor Minister Golda Meir and Prime Minister Teddy Kollek Director General Teddy Kollek, the project became a government apparel and embroidery company called Maskit, with Dayan serving as its CEO. The company provided employment for hundreds of workers, mainly new immigrants, from Kiryat Shmona in the north to Dimona in the south. The company’s clothing and fabrics incorporated examples of different ethnicities and populations, including Libyans, Persians, Yemenis, as well as Druze, Bedouin and Palestinians.

In 1964, “Maskit” ran into difficulties due to poor management and was about to be sold into private hands, but the Ministerial Committee on Economic Affairs decided to preserve it as a government company.

Dayan was one of the founders of Variety Israel in 1967, was a member of the Yesh Din Public Council: a volunteer organization for human rights, a member of the board of directors of the Arab-Jewish Center for Economic Development and a member of the Public Council of the Abraham Fund. In 1970, she joined the Bnei Shem Alliance, an association for understanding between Jews and Arabs, and served as its president for about 40 years.

For decades she has founded and been active in many organizations for new immigrants, the sick and coexistence between Arabs and Jews. In 1994, she received an honorary doctorate from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev for her efforts to bring hearts together between Jews and Arabs. In 1952, she received the Yigal Alon Prize from the “Palmach Generation Association”. In 2010, she received an honorary doctorate from the University of Haifa.

In 1972, after 37 years of marriage, Ruth divorced Moshe Dayan.

In 1973 she published an autobiography called “Perhaps: The Story of Ruth Dayan.” In 2001 she published the collection of letters written to her by Moshe Dayan when he was imprisoned in the Acre prison, in the years 1941-1939, the book also includes excerpts from her diary. On Dayan’s life, Dina Zvi Riklis directed the documentary “Big Mama”, which aired on Channel 2 in 2004.

Dayan was placed in seventh place on the list of the SLI camp ahead of the elections to the Ninth Knesset, later placed in 116th place on the list of candidates for the elections to the 11th Knesset and in 89th place in the run-up to the elections to the 12th Knesset. For the 13th Knesset and the 14th Knesset Elections, 113th place ahead of the 15th Knesset elections, 107th place ahead of the 16th Knesset elections, 100th place ahead of the 17th Knesset elections, 92nd place ahead of the Knesset elections 19th and in 101st place ahead of the 21st Knesset elections, making her the oldest Knesset candidate ever in the country’s history. Ahead of the 22nd Knesset elections, she was placed 102nd on the Democratic camp list. In 108th place on the job-bridge-Meretz list, with her daughter Yael in 107th place on the list.

In 2013, the “Maskit” brand was re-launched after two decades, at the initiative of fashion designer Sharon Tal and with the full cooperation of Dayan.

In 2014, Dayan was awarded the Medal of the President of the State of Israel and the Rappaport Award for Lifetime Achievement in the category: Breakthrough and Changing Feminine Femininity in Israeli Society.

On May 1, 2014, her son Asi Dayan passed away and on November 19, 2017, her son Udi Dayan passed away. In 2017, she won the Shlomo Bublik Prize for 2007, awarded by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.