Amnon Rubinstein

Amnon Rubinstein was born in 1931 in Tel Aviv

Rubinstein was born in Tel Aviv in 1931. His father Aharon was a building contractor, and his parents came to the country from Poland in the early 1920s. In his youth he supported the Irgun, and in the early 1950s he joined the Volunteers' Row, a group that fought corruption and helped new immigrants.

He served in the IDF as an artillery officer and later in the anti-aircraft unit. He then studied law, economics and international relations at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He earned a law doctorate from the London School of Economics in 1960 and became a lawyer in 1961.

In 1963 he became the first dean of the law faculty at Tel Aviv University, serving until 1970. He wrote on Israeli constitutional law and was a long-time member of the Haaretz editorial board. From 1969 to 1972 he hosted the debate program Boomerang on Israel Educational Television.

In 1974 he co-founded Shinui, which later joined the Democratic Movement for Change and then Meretz. He initiated the Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty and the Basic Law: Freedom of Occupation. He served as Minister of Communications, Science, Energy and Education.

He left the Knesset in 2002 and was dean of the Radzyner School of Law in Herzliya from 2002 to 2004. He received the Israel Prize in 2006. He died in 2024.