Israel on Sunday mourned the passing of its premier satirist, Ephraim Kishon, whose biting wit shaped the national agenda of the formative years of the state while keeping the people laughing at the same time.

Kishon, 80, died of an apparent heart attack in the shower at his home in Switzerland, where he maintained a home – underlining his own mixed feelings toward Israel.

It was a swift and unexpected end to the life of an artist whose influence far exceeded the large numbers of people who read his books and his column in a mass-circulation newspaper or saw the skits, plays, and movies he wrote.

Kishon also gained widespread popularity in Europe, especially in German-speaking countries. He often felt better appreciated there than in his adopted home of Israel, target of his sharpest barbs.

He helped set the tone of national discourse by pointing up social problems in a way people could relate to – through laughter.

Paramount was his 1964 play “Salah Shabati,” later made into a movie. It lampoons Israeli society for making life hard for successive waves of new immigrants. In one telling scene, immigrants emerge from the sea, literally as in a wave, to be vilified by “veteran” Israelis already on the shore.

In the next scene, the immigrants seen emerging from the sea are now on the shore, vilifying the next wave. The scene is repeated several times.

The idea carried through to present days as the theme of an award-winning Israeli movie of last year, “Turn Left at the End of the World,” about Jewish immigrants from India sent to a desert development town, where they are disparaged by Moroccan immigrants who arrived just 10 years earlier.

It’s an example of how Kishon’s sharp vision influenced generations of artists and ordinary Israelis in ways they may not have even been aware of.

A friend for decades, actor Haim Topol – who won international fame in the leading role of the 1971 movie “Fiddler on the Roof” after playing the title role in “Salah Shabati” – said Kishon’s satirical newspaper column in Maariv reached the hearts and minds of “simple readers and decision-makers.”

Topol told Army Radio that Kishon was a significant factor during the difficult period of the 1960s, when the young Jewish state was surrounded by enemies and was hard pressed to provide for its citizens. “He held up morale in this country and had a great influence over [Prime Minister] Eshkol,” Topol said.

Born Ferenc Hoffmann in Budapest, Hungary, on August 23, 1924, he narrowly escaped death in the Nazi Holocaust of World War II.

In one Nazi camp, a German officer lined up Jewish inmates and shot one in 10 dead, passing him by. He later managed to escape en route to the Sobibor death camp, his son Rafi said.

Kishon later wrote of the experience: “They made a mistake – they left one satirist alive.”

He changed his name to a Hebrew form when he immigrated to Israel in 1949.

Kishon won the nation’s highest civilian award, the Israel Prize for lifetime achievement, in 2003. But by then he was increasingly estranged from the country, spending most of his time in Switzerland.

“He always had the feeling that he wasn’t appreciated in Israel,” Topol told Yediot Ahronot. “He spoke often of the native-born Israelis who he felt were against him as a Hungarian immigrant.”

The younger Kishon said his father felt pleased with his success in Europe, particularly in Germany.

“He said it’s a great feeling, that the children of my hangmen are my admirers,” Rafi Kishon said.