Lea Ben Dor, a former editor of the Jerusalem Post whose relatively hawkish views and acerbic commentary on events in the Knesset were widely respected, though not always shared by her colleagues, died here last week at the age of 68. She was buried Friday. Her funeral was attended by Mayor Teddy Kollek, government officials, Supreme Court justices and leading members of Israel’s journalistic community.
In eulogizing Mrs. Ben Dor, Kollek paid tribute to her talents as a journalist, political commentator and a patriot, recalling her various services to the State. She was associated with Israel’s secret service during the early years of statehood and at one point took a three-year leave of absence from the Post to work in the Prime Minister’s Office.
Mrs. Ben Dor was the daughter of George Halpern a prominent Zionist from Germany who was one of the founders of the Bank Leumi and the Migdal Minyan Insurance Co. She often recounted to friends her memories of visits to her father’s home by Chaim Weizmann, the first President of Israel, and other Zionist leaders.
STRONG SUPPORTER OF BEN GURION, DAYAN
She was educated at Roedean, a prestigious girls school in England, and at Cambridge and London universities. She joined the Palestine Post, as the newspaper was known before 1948, in the middle 1930s and took leave during World War II to serve with the British Army in Egypt.
During the 1950s and ’60s her influence was strongly felt at the Post. She and then-editor Ted
Lurie were strongly pro-Ben Gurion and saw to it that the views of Israel’s first Premier shaped the “line” of the paper. Her often sharply worded column on doings in parliament became an institution on Israel’s political scene.
Mrs. Ben Dor remained a hawk and a staunch admirer of former Defense Minister Moshe Dayan after the Yom Kippur War when many of her Post colleagues held different outlooks. The clash of views became serious when Mrs. Ben Dor assumed editorship of the Post after Lurie died in 1974.
But chronic asthma and impatience with administrative duties, rather than political differences, cut short her tenure on the newspaper. She retired after less than two years but remained a member of the Post’s Board of Directors.
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