Menachem Elon

Menachem Elon was born in 1923 in Düsseldorf

Elon was born in Düsseldorf, Germany, in 1923 to an Orthodox family of Hasidic background. The family left Germany, moved to Rotterdam in 1934, and settled in Tel Aviv in 1935.

From 1938 he studied at the Hebron Yeshiva and was ordained as a rabbi by chief rabbis Herzog and Uziel. He helped found Kibbutz Tirat Zvi and the Midrashiat Noam school, where he taught. He finished law studies in Tel Aviv in 1948 and earned a doctorate from the Hebrew University in 1962.

He worked in private law practice and at the Ministry of Justice, where he advised on Jewish law from 1959 to 1966. He taught at the Hebrew University from 1955, became a full professor in 1972, and founded its Institute for Research in Jewish Law in 1963. His three-volume work on Jewish law appeared in 1973.

In 1977 he joined the Supreme Court, and he was its deputy president from 1988 until he retired in 1993. His rulings drew on Jewish law, and he opposed judicial activism. In 1983 he was the coalition candidate for president and lost to Chaim Herzog by 61 to 57.

After retiring he headed the World Union of Jewish Studies until 2005 and founded Sha'arei Mishpat College in 1995. He died in Jerusalem in 2013 and was buried at Har HaMenuchot.