Aharon Barak, 1936-
Lithuania-born Barak was a 28-year Supreme Court justice who served as the president of the court from 1995 to 2006. He lifted restrictions on individual petitions to the court and strengthened the judiciary’s authority to…
Fritz Bauer, 1903-1968
Bauer was a German Jewish judge and prosecutor before and after World War II. He was arrested by the Nazis in 1933, lived in Denmark from 1936 to 1943, then escaped to neutral Sweden. He…
Dorit Beinisch, 1942-
Beinisch became the first female president of the Supreme Court in 2006 after serving over 10 years as a justice. She also was the first woman to serve as state attorney, the highest nonpolitical role…
Miriam Ben-Porat, 1918-2012
A native of Belarus who grew up in Lithuania and made aliyah in 1936, Ben-Porat in 1977 became the first woman appointed to the Israeli Supreme Court and the first to serve on the highest…
Gideon Hausner, 1915-1990
As Israel’s attorney general from 1960 to 1963, Poland-born Hausner successfully prosecuted Adolf Eichmann in 1961 for his crimes against humanity and the Jewish people during the Holocaust. Hausner persuaded the court to sentence Eichmann…
Esther Hayut, 1953-
Hayut is the Israeli Supreme Court’s president, a post she is due to hold until October 2023. The Jerusalem Post says she could be Israel’s most influential chief justice since Aharon Barak by reasserting the…
Salim Joubran, 1947-2024
Joubran, a Maronite Christian born in Haifa, was the first Arab with a permanent seat on the Israeli Supreme Court, serving from 2004 to 2017 after a temporary appointment in 2003. He was often on…
