The Israeli Legal System

This is a 2017 paperback printing of the hardback book originally published in 2013. Israel is a vibrant, modern economy of great interest to many American law students due to their religious and cultural connections to Israel and to the extensive business ties between American and Israeli entities. This book presents and analyzes the prominent features of the Israeli legal system, emphasizing the ways in which it differs significantly from American law. It includes chapters on the unique Israeli approach to constitutional law, the role of religious law in Israeli law, on the legal meaning of Israel's identity as a Jewish state, and on the system of family law that allows each religion to control matters of personal status. This book presents Israeli cases, many of them translated into English for the first time, as well as Israeli statutes. The discussion of the material has a strong comparative law aspect. All primary materials are accompanied by extensive explanatory comments, as well as questions for students.

This book provides a concise introduction to the basics of Jewish law. It gives a detailed analysis of contemporary public and private law in the State of Israel, as well as Israel’s legal culture, its system of government, and the roles of its democratic institutions: the executive, parliament, and judiciary. The book examines issues of Holocaust, law and religion, constitutionalization, and equality. It is the ultimate book for anyone interested in Israeli Law and its politics. Authors Shimon Shetreet is the Greenblatt Professor of Public and International Law at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel. He is the President of the International Association of Judicial Independence and World Peace and heads the International Project of Judicial Independence. In 2008, the Mt. Scopus Standards of Judicial Independence were issued under his leadership. Between 1988 and 1996, Professor Shetreet served as a member of the Israeli Parliament, and was a cabinet minister under Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres. He was senior deputy mayor of Jerusalem between 1999 and 2003. He was a Judge of the Standard Contract Court and served as a member of the Chief Justice Landau Commission on the Israeli Court System. The author and editor of many books on the judiciary, Professor Shetreet is a member of the Royal Academy of Science and Arts of Belgium. Rabbi Walter Homolka PhD (King’s College London, 1992), PhD (University of Wales Trinity St. David, 2015), DHL (Hebrew Union College, New York, 2009), is a full professor of Modern Jewish Thought and the executive director of the School of Jewish Theology at the University of Potsdam (Germany). The rector of the Abraham Geiger College (since 2003) is Chairman of the Leo Baeck Foundation and of the Ernst Ludwig Ehrlich Scholarship Foundation in Potsdam. In addition, he has served as the executive director of the Masorti Zacharias Frankel College since 2013.The author of "Jüdisches Eherecht" and other publications on Jewish Law holds several distinctions: among them the Knight Commander’s Cross of the Austrian Merit Order and the 1st Class Federal Merit Order of Germany. In 2004, President Jacques Chirac admitted Rabbi Homolka to the French Legion of Honor.

Présentation de l'éditeur : "This Volume offers an introduction to the Israeli legal system. It includes a detailed analysis of the Foundations of the Israeli Law, Civil, Public and Criminal Law, Trade and Business Law as well as a presentation of Israel within the International Law."

The Purse and the Sword presents a critical analysis of Israel's legal system in the context of its politics, history, and the forces that shape its society. This book examines the extensive powers that Israel's Supreme Court arrogated to itself since the 1980s and traces the history of the transformation of its legal system and the shifts in the balance of power between the branches of government. Centrally, this shift has put unprecedented power in the hands of both the Court and Israel's attorney general and state prosecution at the expense of Israel's cabinet, constituting its executive branch, and the Knesset--its parliament. The expansion of judicial power followed the weakening of the political leadership in the wake of the Yom Kippur war of 1973, and the election results in the following years. These developments are detailed in the context of major issues faced by modern Israel, including the war against terror, the conflict with the Palestinians, the Arab minority, settlements in the West Bank, state and religion, immigration, military service, censorship and freedom of expression, appointments to the government and to public office, and government policies. The aggrandizement of power by the legal system led to a backlash against the Supreme Court in the early part of the current century, and to the partial rebalancing of power towards the political branches.

Based on a number of articles in Hebrew which appeared in Mishpatim, the law review of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Moreover, Israel lacks the organizing structure and directing force provided by a written constitution.

In the domain of comparative constitutionalism, Israeli constitutional law is a fascinating case study constituted of many dilemmas. It is moving from the old British tradition of an unwritten constitution and no judicial review of legislation to fully-fledged constitutionalism endorsing judicial review and based on the text of a series of basic laws. At the same time, it is struggling with major questions of identity, in the context of Israel's constitutional vision of 'a Jewish and Democratic' state. Israeli Constitutional Law in the Making offers a comprehensive study of Israeli constitutional law in a systematic manner that moves from constitution-making to specific areas of contestation including state/religion relations, national security, social rights, as well as structural questions of judicial review. It features contributions by leading scholars of Israeli constitutional law, with comparative comments by leading scholars of constitutional law from Europe and the United States.

By analyzing “law in the making” between 2012 and 2018 and focusing on the conceptualization of gender, the book strives to determine why there is to date no family law in Palestine despite controversial public debates.