Meir Harnik, Composer, Broadcaster, Dies at 45 in Road Accident

Services were held yesterday for Meir Harnik, 45, well-known composer and broadcaster, who was killed last Friday night when the motorcycle he was driving collided with a motor scooter in Rehov Hapal-mah. The other rider was badly injured. For more than 15 years, Mr. Harnik conducted community-sing radio programs that were both popular and controversial because of their informality, as contrasted with the British Mandate image, and because of his own personal comments. He recently created a versatile new evening program of interviews and music, “Ad Hatzot” (“Until Midnight”), which also won wide popularity. Piano tunes he composed continue to accompany the radio’s daily gymnastic broadcasts.

Mr. Harnik, who would have been 46 next month, was born in Jerusalem and brought up here and in Paris and Hadera, His parents had come to Palestine from Bukovina shortly after World War I. He studied music at the Jerusalem Conservatory and language at the Hebrew University. Mr. Harnik joined Kol Yisroel Radio as a full-time staff member in the mid-1950s, initiating the sing-a-long format a few years later. The composer-conductor-pianist regarded the teachings of songs as one of his main vocations.

Israel has increased its share of the growing Japanese market for polished diamonds, it was reported in Tel Aviv. The Israeli share Jumped from over $2 million as of Aug. 1971, to more than $5 million as of Aug. 1972, from a total of $33.6 million worth of polished diamonds imported by Japan. Japan is now second only to the US as a buyer of polished diamonds from Israel.