Moshe Landau

Moshe Landau was born in 1912 in Gdańsk

Landau was born in 1912 in Danzig. His father, Isaac Landau, was a doctor and Zionist activist.

He finished high school in 1930 and studied law at the University of London, graduating in 1933. That year he immigrated to the Land of Israel. He was admitted as a lawyer in 1937 and married Leah Duchan that year.

In 1940 he became a magistrate in Haifa, and in 1948 a District Court judge. He joined the Supreme Court in 1953, became Deputy President in 1976 and President in 1980, retiring in 1982. In 1961 he presided over the trial of Adolf Eichmann.

In 1962 he sat on a panel that overturned a censorship ban and set rules on free expression. In 1965 he chaired the Central Elections Committee, which barred a socialist list from running. He sat on the Agranat Commission after the Yom Kippur War and in 1987 headed a commission on Shin Bet interrogations, which allowed moderate physical pressure and drew criticism from human rights groups.

He opposed judicial activism. He chaired the Technion board and was the first chairman of the Yad Vashem commission on the Righteous Among the Nations. He received the Israel Prize in 1991 and died in 2011.