Shamai Leibowitz

Shamai Leibowitz was born in 1969 in Haifa

Shamai Leibowitz was born in Haifa in 1969. He is the grandson of Yeshayahu Leibowitz and the son of mathematician Elhanan Leibowitz and Shira, a teacher and translator. The family moved to Beersheba when his father took a teaching post at Ben-Gurion University.

He attended a state religious school and later studied at the Har Etzion hesder yeshiva. While there, he wrote to the newspaper Maariv in favor of dividing the land into 2 states, which drew criticism. He then studied law at Bar-Ilan University.

During his internship with Tel Aviv District Court judge Savyona Rotlevy, he asked to disqualify her, and she said he had breached trust. Aharon Barak ruled in her favor. Leibowitz then opened a small office handling traffic offenses.

In 2002 he helped write and signed a letter calling on IDF soldiers to refuse to operate in Arab cities. That year he briefly joined the defense team of Marwan Barghouti. He also represented activists of the ISM group.

In the United States he worked for the FBI. On December 17, 2009, he pleaded guilty to disclosing 5 Secret FBI documents to blogger Richard Silverstein. On May 24, 2010, he was sentenced under the Espionage Act to 20 months in prison.