Menachem Elon | |
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Former Deputy President Supreme Court of Israel
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Native name | מנחם אלון |
Born |
Düsseldorf, Germany |
November 1, 1923
Died | February 6, 2013 Jerusalem, Israel |
(aged 89)
Nationality | Israeli |
Alma mater | |
Occupation | Jurist |
Employer | |
Spouse(s) | Ruth Elon (Buchsbaum) |
Relatives |
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Awards |
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Menachem Elon (Hebrew: מנחם אלון ) (November 1, 1923 – February 6, 2013) was an Israeli jurist and Professor of Law specializing in Mishpat Ivri, an Orthodox rabbi, and a prolific author on traditional Jewish law (halakha). He was the head of the Jewish Law Institute of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Elon served as a justice on the Israeli Supreme Court from 1977–1993 and as its Deputy President from 1988–1993. In 1983 he was a candidate for the President of the State of Israel.
Menachem Fetter (later Elon) was born in Düsseldorf, Germany into a religious Jewish family from Hasidic backgrounds. Elon's family fled to the Netherlands a year before Nazism's ascent in Germany. In 1935 Elon's family immigrated to Palestine. In 1938 he studied Halakha (traditional Jewish law) in the Hebron Yeshiva, and was ordained as a rabbi by chief rabbis Ben-Zion Meir Hai Uziel and Yitzhak HaLevi Herzog. He was among the founders of a yeshiva high school Midrashiat Noam in Pardes Hanna and served for two years as a teacher there, and became one of the founders of the religious Kibbutz Tirat Zvi in the Beit She'an Valley.