Jerusalem – Israeli politicians joined the world in mourning Jewish singer and songwriter Leonard Cohen, who died late Thursday night.
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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shared his thoughts on Twitter speaking of Cohen’s love of Israel.
“I’ll never forget how he arrived to sing to soldiers during the Yom Kippur War, out of a sense of solidarity,” Netanyahu tweeted.
Though the prime minister had originally finished his army service in 1972, Netanyahu served in the Yom Kippur War.
“This morning we looked at each other and we each had the same thought. Dance me to the end of love was the sound track to many moments in our lives, as a couple and as a family,” President Reuven Rivlin and his wife, Nechama, said in a joint Facebook post on the president’s official page.
The Rivlins thanked Cohen for all that he had done, noting that Cohen “never once thought to change his clearly Jewish name to win recognition from anyone.”
Cohen, “Knew to accompany the state of Israel in the battlefields and in times of growth,” stated the Rivlins.
“Leonard Cohen will continue to dance with us until the end of love.”
Former Defense Minister Moshe “Bogie” Ya’alon also paid his respects tweeting, “There are so few artists with such emotional, deep voices that have touched and continue to touch so many people as Leonard Cohen.”
Cohen died at the age of 82.
“It is with profound sorrow we report that legendary poet, songwriter and artist, Leonard Cohen has passed away,” his Facebook page said late Thursday. “We have lost one of music’s most revered and prolific visionaries.”
It did not give a cause of death, but said there would be a funeral in Los Angeles in coming days.
Cohen is survived by a son and a daughter.