Elyakim Rubinstein

Elyakim Rubinstein was born in 1947 in Tel Aviv

Rubinstein was born in Tel Aviv in 1947 and grew up in Givatayim, the eldest son of Mordechai and Shifra. His mother was a senior nurse, and his father was a Holocaust survivor who reached the Land of Israel in 1943. At age 11 he took part in a Bible quiz for children.

He attended the Zeitlin religious high school in Tel Aviv and finished at 16. At the Hebrew University of Jerusalem he studied Arabic and Hebrew, and he completed law studies in 1969. He was admitted to the bar in 1972 and later earned a master's degree in contemporary Jewry.

After legal posts in the Defense and Foreign ministries, he joined the delegation to the peace talks with Egypt from 1977 to 1979. He later served as Deputy Chief of Mission in Washington and was appointed Cabinet Secretary in 1986. He chaired the Israeli delegation to the peace talks with Jordan, which ended with the 1994 peace treaty.

He was a judge on the Jerusalem District Court from 1995 to 1997 and then Attorney General until 2004. In that post he backed Reform and Conservative seats on Jerusalem's religious council, and he was criticized over the pace of his handling of cases involving Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

He joined the Supreme Court in 2004 and became its Deputy President in 2015, retiring in 2017. He received the Chaim Herzog Prize in 2018 and has headed Ashkelon Academic College since April 2025.