Ruth Lapidoth

Ruth Lapidoth was born in 1930 in Germany

Ruth Lapidoth was born in Germany on October 27, 1930. Her family moved to the Land of Israel shortly before World War II, and she grew up in Ramat Gan. She is married to Professor Arie Lapidoth, and their son Michael fell during his military service.

She served in the IDF Medical Corps. She then studied law at the Hebrew University, interned at the Supreme Court, and after her master's degree studied international law at the University of Paris.

She taught at the Hebrew University from 1956 to 2001 and became a full professor in 1980. Her research covered freedom of navigation, including the Straits of Tiran and the Suez Canal, and later the legal status of Jerusalem and the refugees. She served as legal adviser to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs from 1979 to 1981.

From 1984 to 1986 she was the first chair of the National Council for the Advancement of Women. In 1986 Israel named her to the arbitration panel in the Taba border dispute with Egypt. She has been a senior researcher at the Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies since 1989.

She lit a torch at the Independence Day ceremony in 1993. A book in her honor was published in 2020, and she received the EMET Prize in law in 2022.