Menachem Elon | |
|---|---|
| מנחם אלון | |
.jpg) Menachem Elon in 1983 | |
| Supreme Court of Israel judge | |
| In office 1977–1993 | |
| Personal details | |
| Born | (1923-11-01)November 1, 1923 Düsseldorf,Germany |
| Died | February 6, 2013(2013-02-06) (aged 89) Jerusalem, Israel |
| Nationality | Israeli |
| Spouse | Ruth Elon (Buchsbaum) |
| Relatives |
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| Alma mater | |
| Occupation | Jurist |
| Awards | |
Menachem Elon (Hebrew: מנחם אלוןⓘ; November 1, 1923 – February 6, 2013) was an Israeli jurist and Professor of Law specializing intraditional Jewish Law, anOrthodoxrabbi, and a prolific author on traditionalJewish law (Halakha). He was the head of the Jewish Law Institute of theHebrew University of Jerusalem. He lost the1983 Israeli Presidential Election toChaim Herzog.
Elon served as a justice of theIsraeli Supreme Court from 1977–1993, and as its Deputy President from 1988–1993.
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Menachem Fetter (later Elon) was born inDüsseldorf,Germany,[1] into a religious Jewish family fromHasidic backgrounds. Elon's family fled to theNetherlands a year beforeNazism's ascent in Germany. In 1935, Elon's family immigrated toMandatory Palestine. In 1938, he studiedHalakha (traditional Jewish law) in theHebron Yeshiva, and was ordained as a rabbi by chief rabbisBen-Zion Meir Hai Uziel andYitzhak HaLevi Herzog. He was among the founders of ayeshiva high schoolMidrashiat Noam inPardes Hanna, and served for two years as a teacher there, and became one of the founders of the religiousKibbutzTirat Zvi in theBeit She'an Valley.[2]
The Elon family, a member of thereligious Zionist elite, is entrenched in the world of law, politics, Literature, and Halakha (Jewish religious law). In 1949, Menachem Elon married Ruth Buchsbaum, the daughter of Dr.Mordechai Buchsbaum, an Orthodox Jewish attorney and a former deputymayor of Jerusalem. Amongst Elon's five children are RabbiBinyamin Elon (married to writerEmuna Elon), a former member ofKnesset and cabinet minister (Minister of Tourism, 2001–2004); RabbiMordechai Elon, the former head ofYeshivat HaKotel;Joseph ("Sefi") Elon, a district judge inBe'er Sheva and temporary judge of the Supreme Court of Israel (2007–2009); andAri Elon, who is secular and a lecturer on the Bible.
Elon earned his diploma from the Tel Aviv School of Law and Economics in 1948. In the early 1950s, he worked as an attorney in private practice, while at the same time completing anM.A. inTalmud, Jewish history, and philosophy atHebrew University of Jerusalem. In 1962, he received his doctorate. In 1955, he began a parallel career as a lecturer in Hebrew law at Hebrew University, and was subsequently appointed teaching associate, senior lecturer, associate professor, and, in 1972, Professor of Jewish Law. He also served as a guest lecturer at the Faculty of Law atOxford University,University College of London,McGill University, andUniversity of Pennsylvania, and as a visiting professor atHarvard University School of Law and atNew York University School of Law.
In 1963, Elon was appointed head of the Institute for Research in Jewish Law at the Hebrew University, where he edited 10 volumes of The Annual of the Institute for Research in Jewish Law, as well as a digest of the response of the medieval authorities. From 1968 to 1971, he served as editor of the Division of Jewish Law of theEncyclopedia Judaica, and served as the editor of theEncyclopaedia Hebraica.
He played a pivotal role in theMishpat Ivri (Hebrew Law) movement. Among his many works, he authored the foundationalJewish Law : History, Sources, Principles[3] - a monumental, three-volume book on Hebrew law for academic use and the training of Israeli law students.[4] In 1955, he was appointed senior assistant to theAttorney General of IsraelHaim Cohn, and from 1959 to 1966, Elon served as adviser on Jewish Law to theIsrael Ministry of Justice, a job which included writing legal opinions based on Jewish law regarding every law proposed in Knesset. He was a member of numerous Israeli Public Inquiry committees, and he served on committees to prepare legal proposals in various fields of civil law.
In 1979, Elon was awarded theIsrael Prize for Hebrew law.[5]
In 1977, he was appointed to theIsraeli Supreme Court. Elon's rulings often drew upon the principles of Jewish law; he sought to incorporate traditional Halakha into the corpus of Israeli civil law.[6] Elon emerged as a prominent critic of former president of the Supreme CourtAharon Barak'sjudicial activism.
Elon was involved in a number of important verdicts, including the acquittal ofNazi war criminalJohn Demjanjuk.
Among Elon's prominent decisions were a ruling prohibiting registering the character of non-Orthodox conversions on Israeli identity cards, one ordering the return of a girl who had been transferred for adoption without her parents' consent, and the decision to order a local religious service committee to accept Leah Shakdiel as its first female member.[7] In 1988, he ruled that activeeuthanasia ("mercy killing") was illegal, because it negated the values of the State of Israel as a Jewish state (Yael Shefer v. The State of Israel).
In 1988, he was promoted to the position of deputy president of the Supreme Court, underMeir Shamgar. He served in this position until his retirement in 1993 after 16 years as a justice; he was succeeded as deputy president by Aharon Barak.
Supported byMenachem Begin and the coalition (Likud party), Elon was nearly selected asPresident of the State of Israel,losing in a close vote (61-57) to his childhood friendChaim Herzog in 1983.
After retiring from the Supreme Court in 1993, he was elected President of the World Union of Jewish Studies, and served in that capacity until 2005.[8] In 1995, he founded and became the founding dean ofSha'arei Mishpat College for the first eight years of its existence.[9] Elon headed a number of non-profit organizations, and sat on the boards of others. He also continued to write and teach at universities around the world. In 1992, Elon wrote the "Jerusalem Covenant" - a mosaic dealing with the centrality of Jerusalem in Jewish life - signed on the 25thJerusalem Day.
Menachem Elon died in Jerusalem on February 6, 2013, and was buried inHar HaMenuchot (Jerusalem). He was 89.
