Benjamin Halevy

Benjamin Halevy was born in 1910 in Weißenfels

Halevy was born Ernst Levi in Weissenfels, Germany, in 1910. He studied at the universities of Freiburg, Göttingen and Berlin, and earned a doctorate in law in Berlin in 1933.

In 1933, after the Nazis came to power, he immigrated to the Land of Israel and trained for 2 years at Kvutzat Degania Bet. He then worked in the law office of Mordechai Eliash and was licensed as a lawyer in 1938.

He became a magistrate judge in Jerusalem in 1938 and was moved to Tel Aviv in 1941. When the state was founded he became President of the Jerusalem District Court. He judged the Kastner trial, where his ruling was mostly overturned by the Supreme Court, and the trials of the Kafr Qasim massacre defendants and of Adolf Eichmann.

In May 1963 he was appointed to the Supreme Court, and he retired in 1969 to run for the Knesset. He was elected for Gahal and later for Likud, then left to sit as an independent. In 1977 he was elected for Dash, later joined the Democratic Movement, and served as deputy speaker of the Ninth Knesset.

Halevy died in 1996 and was buried in the Sanhedria cemetery in Jerusalem. A street in Weissenfels is named after him.