Neal Hendel

Neal Hendel was born in 1952 in United States

Neal Hendel was born in 1952 in Brooklyn, New York. He went to high school at the Yeshivah of Flatbush.

He earned a BA in sociology and Jewish studies at New York University in 1973. He studied Talmud at Yeshiva University with Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik. He then studied law at Hofstra University and finished his law degree in 1976.

He practiced law in New York, including at the Legal Aid Office, and moved to Israel in 1983, settling in Beersheba. He worked in the southern district prosecutor's office until 1988, then became a judge on the Beersheba Magistrate's Court. In 1997 he joined the Beersheba District Court and became its Vice-President in 2006.

In 2009 he was chosen unanimously for the Supreme Court, moving there directly from a district court. On the bench he wrote several rulings and dissents favoring acquittal in murder cases. He chaired the Central Elections Committee for the 23rd Knesset and became Deputy President of the Supreme Court in 2021.

He retired from the Supreme Court in 2022. That year he became an associate professor at the law school of Sapir Academic College. He is married to Marcie, a psychologist, and they have 5 sons.