Shabtai Ben-Dov

Shabtai Ben-Dov was born in 1924 in Vilnius

Ben-Dov was born in Vilnius in 1924 as Shabtai Drabinsky. After his father Dov died, he moved to the Land of Israel with his mother in 1935. He studied at a commercial high school.

As a youth he joined the Irgun to fight British rule, and in 1942 he moved to Lehi. That year the British arrested him. He spent 6 years in prisons and camps in the country, Eritrea, Sudan and Kenya, and was freed when the state was founded.

In the early 1950s he studied law and philosophy at the Hebrew University and turned to Jewish sources. In 1954 he joined the legislation department of the Ministry of Justice and drafted bills based on Jewish law. His land law proposal was shelved in 1962 after Justice Minister Dov Yosef opposed it.

He later became legal adviser to the Ministry of Commerce and Industry. In 1968 he petitioned the High Court of Justice against Muslim Waqf control of the Temple Mount, and the petition was rejected. His ideas on active redemption influenced Yehuda Etzion, whom he mentored.

He was married to Yael, a Lehi fighter, and they had 2 children. From 1968 the family lived in Beit Hanina, where he died of heart disease in 1978.