Jacob Turkel
| Jacob (Yaakov) Turkel | |
|---|---|
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| Born | 1935 Tel Aviv |
| Nationality | Israeli |
| Alma mater | Hebrew University of Jerusalem |
| Known for | Former Supreme Court of Israel Justice |
Jacob (Yaakov) Turkel (Hebrew: יעקב טירקל; born in 1935 in Tel Aviv) is an Israeli judge, and former Supreme Court of Israel Justice.
Turkel served as a judge for 38 years, a decade of that time on the Israeli Supreme Court. In June 2010, he was appointed to head the Israeli special independent Turkel Commission of Inquiry into the Gaza flotilla raid.
Yaakov Turkel was born in Tel Aviv to a family that had immigrated from Vienna, Austria, in 1933. At age five, the family moved to Jerusalem, where Turkel attended Ma'aleh, a state religious school. Turkel studied law at Hebrew University of Jerusalem, graduating from its Law School in 1960.
From 1967 on, Turkel served on various courts, including the Shalom Court, as a Regional Court judge. From 1980 to 1995 he served as President of the Beersheba District Court (during which time he took two years off to serve as an acting Supreme Court justice).
Turkel served as an Israeli Supreme Court Justice from 1995 until 2005.
In August 2000 he wrote in an opinion that by filling in gaps of missing text in a 2,000-year-old Dead Sea Scroll, and deciphering and putting together scroll fragments, a scholar had shown "originality and creativity" that gave him a copyright in his work. In October 2000, he rejected an appeal by Holocaust survivors and the Simon Wiesenthal Center against the first Israeli performance of a work by German composer Richard Wagner, who Holocaust survivors and others say promoted anti-Semitism.
In June 2004, he issued a temporary injunction prohibiting the State of Israel from removing thousands of tons of earth and rubble mixed with assorted archaeologically rich artifacts lying on Jerusalem's Temple Mount. He still sits on a military court appeals panel.
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