Aharon Barak

Aharon Barak (אהרן ברק; born 16 September 1936) is an Israeli lawyer and jurist who served as President of the Supreme Court of Israel from 1995 to 2006.

Barak was born with the name of Erik Brick in Kaunas, Lithuania in 1936.

After the Nazi occupation of the city in 1941, the family was in the Kovno ghetto.

In an interview with HaOlam HaZeh, Barak told how a Lithuanian farmer saved his life by hiding him under a load of potatoes and smuggling him out of the ghetto, thereby risking his own life if caught.

At the end of the war, after wandering through Hungary, Austria, and Italy, Barak and his parents reached Rome, where they spent the next two years.

Having survived the Holocaust, he and his family later immigrated to Mandatory Palestine in 1947.

In 1947, they received travel papers and immigrated to Mandatory Palestine.

After a brief period in a moshav, the family settled in Jerusalem.

He studied law, international relations and economics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and obtained his Bachelor of Laws in 1958.

Between 1958 and 1960, he was drafted into the Israeli military.

He studied law, international relations and economics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and obtained his Bachelor of Laws in 1958.

Between 1958 and 1960, having been drafted into the Israeli Defense Forces, he served in the office of the Financial Advisor to the Chief of Staff.

Upon discharging his service he returned to the Hebrew University, where he completed his doctoral dissertation with distinction in 1963.

Simultaneously he began work as an intern at the Attorney General's office.

When the Attorney General began dealing with the trial of Adolf Eichmann, Barak, being a Holocaust survivor, preferred not to be involved in the work.

At his request, he was transferred to the State Attorney's office to complete his internship.

Upon completing his internship he was recognised as a certified attorney.

Barak is married to Elisheva Barak-Ussoskin, former vice president of the National Labor Court, with whom he has three daughters and a son, all trained in the law.

Between 1966 and 1967 Barak studied at Harvard University.

In 1968 he was appointed as a professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and in 1974 was named the dean of its law faculty.

From 1974 to 1975, Barak was dean of the law faculty of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Barak is currently a law professor at Reichman University in Herzliya, and has taught at institutions including Yale Law School, Central European University, Georgetown University Law Center, and the University of Toronto Faculty of Law.

Erik Brick (later Aharon Barak) was born in Kaunas, Lithuania, the only son of Zvi Brick, an attorney, and his wife Leah, a teacher.

In 1975, at age 38, he was awarded the Israel Prize for legal research.

In the same year he became a member of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities.

Between 1975 and 1978, Barak served as the Attorney General of Israel.

Among his well-known decisions in this capacity were:

Prior to this, Barak served as a Justice of the Supreme Court of Israel from 1978 to 1995, and before this as Attorney General of Israel from 1975 to 1978.

In 1978 he became a foreign member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

After his retirement from the Supreme Court, Barak joined the staff of the Reichman University in Herzliya, and he teaches in the master's degree program for Commercial Law.

He also lectures in the Bachelor of Laws program.

In addition, he continues to lecture at both the Yale Law School and the University of Alabama in the United States, as well as lecturing as a Distinguished Visitor at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law.

Barak was appointed by Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin in 1978 as the legal advisor to the Israeli delegation for negotiating the Camp David Accords.

In his book Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, Jimmy Carter praises Barak as a negotiator despite the political disagreements between them.

On 22 September 1978, Barak began his service as a Justice of the Supreme Court of Israel – the youngest of all of the judges.

In 1982–83 he served as a member of the Kahan Commission, a state investigation committee formed to investigate the circumstances surrounding the Sabra and Shatila massacre.

As part of the committee's conclusions, then Minister of Defense Ariel Sharon was removed from his position.

The committee further recommended that he never be appointed to that position again in the future.

In 1993, with the retirement of the Deputy President of the Supreme Court Menachem Elon, Barak was appointed the Deputy President.

Barak's son-in-law Ram Landes made a one-hour documentary film about Barak in 2009 called The Judge, based on an in-depth interview with Barak.