Nitsana Darshan-Leitner

Nitsana Darshan-Leitner was born in 1973 in Petah Tikva

Darshan-Leitner was born in 1973 in Petah Tikva to a religious Persian Jewish family. Her parents came to Israel from Iran. Her father was a teacher and her mother a homemaker.

She attended high school at Ulpanit Yeshurun in Petah Tikva and did national service with Magen David Adom. She studied law at Bar-Ilan University and earned an MBA from Manchester University through Ono Academic College.

In 1997, as a law student, she petitioned the Supreme Court against allowing Abu Abbas to enter Gaza. She founded Shurat HaDin and has led it since, representing hundreds of terror victims in suits against Hamas, the Palestinian Authority, Iran and Syria. She also took legal steps against the flotillas to Gaza.

In 2012 she received the Moskowitz Prize for Zionism. Her book Harpoon, about a Mossad task force targeting terror funding, came out in 2020. She ran for leadership of the Jewish Home party and was placed fourth on its list for the 25th Knesset elections.