Shai Nitzan

Shai Nitzan was born in 1959 in Jerusalem

Shai Nitzan was born in Jerusalem in 1959. His parents, Hava and Yaakov, came to the Land of Israel from Hungary and Czechoslovakia in 1934. He grew up in a religious home in the Kiryat Moshe neighborhood and studied at the Bnei Akiva Netiv Meir yeshiva.

He joined the IDF in 1978 and served as a paratrooper in Battalion 890. In 1985 he completed a bachelor's degree in law and Jewish history at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and interned at the Supreme Court with Justice Aharon Barak. He earned a master's in law there in 1989, and in 1999 he graduated from the National Security College and earned a master's in political science from the University of Haifa.

Nitzan worked in the State Attorney's Office for many years. He was assistant to State Attorney Dorit Beinisch from 1989 to 1993 and a lawyer in the High Court of Justice department from 1994 to 2002. He later became deputy State Attorney for special affairs and oversaw the legal side of the 2005 disengagement plan, a policy that drew criticism.

In 2012 the government appointed him deputy Attorney General for special affairs. He became State Attorney on 16 December 2013, replacing Moshe Lador, and his term ended on 16 December 2019. In November 2021 he was appointed to a senior post at the National Library of Israel.